The International Committee for the Investigation of Torture in Belarus presents an analytical report on how the Belarusian language has become a marker of political disloyalty in places of detention. Evidence shows that for using their native language, detainees and prisoners face ridicule, insults, beatings, placement in punishment isolation cells (SHIZO), and denial of visits, phone calls, and parcels.
The report is based on data from twenty interviews selected from 2,000 testimonies documented by the Committee. The interviews were conducted by documentarians with individuals who survived politically motivated detentions and imprisonment. The findings are supported by materials from the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, PEN Belarus, and conclusions of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus.
The analysis traces the evolution of practices from 2020 to 2026 — from spontaneous violence during mass detentions to disciplinary sanctions and formalized preventive registry of those “prone to extremism” for using the Belarusian language. It specifically addresses the cases of Belarusian-language activists Vitold Ashurak and Ales Pushkin, the legal qualification of the documented practices, and the key consequence of this pressure: the forced abandonment of their native language by Belarusian speakers as a survival strategy in places of detention.
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