Statement by Félix Maradiaga
President of the World Liberty Congress
15 September 2026
The World Liberty Congress welcomes the report presented today by the United Nations Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus. It is a necessary act of truth.
The experts describe what survivors of dictatorship know firsthand: when dissent becomes a crime, police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons become a single instrument of repression. Arbitrary arrests, torture, forced “repentance,” closed trials, prolonged isolation, and surveillance after release form a system designed to teach an entire society the price of speaking.
We honor the Belarusian people who have refused that lesson. We stand with political prisoners, families waiting without news, women subjected to degrading treatment, lawyers persecuted for defending their clients, and organizations such as Viasna, whose leaders were imprisoned and expelled without valid documents. Exile is not freedom when a regime pursues its citizens across borders and treats nationality as a privilege it can revoke.
Every release matters. Every person leaving a cell returns hope to their loved ones. Yet releases do not end repression when the machinery remains intact. A dictatorship that frees some prisoners while jailing others, conducting trials in absentia, and keeping former prisoners under coercive supervision is managing a hostage economy. Justice is not a revolving door. Accountability is not optional.
Belarusian democrats are part of the World Liberty Congress’s leadership and membership. Our Ombudsperson, Andrei Sannikov, has endured imprisonment and exile and worked tirelessly to keep political prisoners visible. Their struggle is ours, shared with democrats in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Iran, China, and wherever courts serve as instruments of fear.
We call on Belarusian authorities to release immediately and unconditionally everyone held on politically motivated charges; end incommunicado detention and the degrading treatment of political prisoners; restore the rights of those released; and grant independent investigators access to the country.
We urge the international community to sustain pressure for freedom and accountability. Individual releases must never purchase silence about continuing repression. Those responsible must know that impunity cannot shield them forever. Victims must know they have not been forgotten.
A society threatened with the destruction of a life for speaking freely has not been pacified. It has been occupied. Free nations and movements like ours must resist that occupation—patiently, nonviolently, and without abandoning those still in the dark.
The people of Belarus have not surrendered their right to live in truth. Neither will we.
