The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced the launch of an official investigation into the Belarusian authorities regarding the violent campaign against the country’s civilian population that began after the 2020 elections.
The Belarusian authorities are suspected of committing crimes against humanity, specifically deportations for political reasons, which were carried out as part of state policy.
Lithuania has demanded that an investigation into Belarus begin in 2024. Belarus is not a member of the ICC, so the court spent a year and a half trying to determine whether the alleged crimes fell within its jurisdiction.
Now the ICC has concluded that the alleged crimes were of a cross-border nature, meaning that they were partly committed on the territory of Lithuania, and therefore fell within the court’s jurisdiction.
After the 2020 presidential elections, according to rough estimates, 500-600 thousand people left Belarus. Many people left not only because of disagreement with the political course, but also involuntarily – due to apparent pressure from security forces or under the threat of criminal prosecution.