Belarus has cancelled the passport of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski and other recently deported political prisoners, in what rights groups say is a new form of pressure on exiled dissidents.
“This is another form of transnational repression, aimed at making life difficult for deported political prisoners outside the country,” Byalyatski said in a statement released on April 3. “The authorities are cutting off our ties with Belarus, but it is a futile effort.”
The move targets prisoners recently released as part of a US-brokered deal with Minsk in exchange for sanctions relief. Activists say that by stripping former detainees of valid identification, authorities are making it harder for them to travel, obtain new documents, regularize their status abroad, or return home -- effectively cementing their exile.
“This is a continuation of persecution and an attempt to create conditions where it becomes impossible for these individuals to return to the country normally,” said Svyatlana Halaunyova, a lawyer at the Vyasna Human Rights Center, an exiled Belarusian organization that Byalyatski founded.
She added that the policy amounts to an administrative tool to formalize exile for the hundreds of former prisoners expelled from Belarus over the past year.
Nearly Five Years In Prison
Byalyatski, a veteran activist who was released and removed from Belarus in a US-brokered deal in December 2025 after nearly five years in prison, said he was informed that his passport is no longer valid, despite not being set to expire until 2028.
Byalyatski shared the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize with rights activists from Ukraine and Russia.
Belarusian authorities have not publicly commented on the passport cancellations.
The move follows a series of negotiated prisoner releases that saw hundreds freed from detention but expelled from the country.
On September 11, 2025, 51 political prisoners were released after talks between Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko and a US delegation. Many were immediately taken abroad, in some cases without passports.
A second group of 123 prisoners left the country on December 13, 2025, under similar circumstances, with some receiving only temporary release certificates instead of official travel documents.
On March 19, Lukashenko issued a decree pardoning 250 prisoners, including 15 political detainees who were transported to Vilnius without passports, according to rights groups.
In several cases, former prisoners who managed to retain their passports have since had them declared invalid, Vyasna has said.
