The mood was sombre, mid-September, at a Belarus accountability conference held in Vilnius, Lithuania, which Justice Info attended. The leader of the Belarusian democratic opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, now in exile in Vilnius, was explaining that “restoring justice is our only path back to democracy”. She was also telling participants that we “must use instruments we have now” and that “impunity breeds monsters”. There was frustration that universal jurisdiction cases – started in neighbouring countries after the massive repression following 2020 presidential elections Tsikhanouskaya was running for – are progressing slowly and that there is no progress at all on a possible special tribunal on crimes against humanity for Belarus.
Unlawful deportation of Belarus citizens
But on Monday 30 September, suddenly, Lithuania took the lead on accountability, as a now renowned pro-active member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and as the country to which thousands of Belarusians fled. It officially referred to the Hague court all the information gathered about how the neighbouring citizens were forced out, and what kind of persecution they still face. Even though Belarus is not a member of the ICC, Vilnius argues that there is a continuing crime being committed on Lithuania’s territory. That precedent was set when judges at the court agreed that the thousands of Rohingya forced from Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh could come under the court’s aegis via Dhaka’s membership.
“The principal crime against humanity that has been alleged is that there has been unlawful deportation”, explained Aarif Abraham, the principal lawyer for Lithuania at the ICC, at a press conference in The Hague on October 1. Abraham added that the threat of expulsion or an environment in which coercive acts become permissive are also part of their legal analysis. The civilians of Belarus are pushed out as part of state policy “to eliminate opposition,” he said. “They are being persecuted by Minsk, even when they’ve crossed the border. It is done specifically and because they are political opponents of the regime. These patterned unlawful and underlying unlawful acts are highly discriminatory,” which could amount to “crimes against humanity”.
“Every month”, children are sent from Ukraine to Belarus
Simultaneously, the ICC prosecutor is receiving new information on Belarus from Ukrainian and Belarusian NGOs – who announce a new report coming out for the public on Friday, October 4.
Their work comes against the backdrop of the ICC arrest warrants against Russian president Vladimir Putin and children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova that was specifically focused on children’s deportation into Russia. The ICC prosecutor Karim Khan stated that “hundreds of children [were] taken from orphanages and children’s care homes. Many of these children, we allege, have since been given for adoption in the Russian Federation. The law was changed in the Russian Federation, through Presidential decrees issued by President Putin, to expedite the conferral of Russian citizenship, making it easier for them to be adopted by Russian families. My Office alleges that these acts, amongst others, demonstrate an intention to permanently remove these children from their own country.”
The new joint Ukraine and Belarus NGO investigation was submitted to the ICC last month. In interviews with Justice Info, the researchers explained how they approached their work. They collected evidence from 2021 through until June of 2024 and documented over 2.000 children. “For the time frame we started with the 2021 decree signed personally by [President of Belarus] Lukashenko authorising the displacement of a group of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Belarus”, said Onysia Syniuk a legal analyst, working for Ukraine human rights NGO Zmina.
First, they searched via public documents and social media. The keywords ‘Ukrainian children’ yielded no results, but instead ‘children from the new Russian territories’ were described as being transferred to Belarus with regularity and celebrated there. “In the report, we have a sort of chronological order. Every month, a group of children is sent from the occupied territories [the parts of Ukraine now under Russian control] to Belarus, to the camps,” Syniuk explained.
“Recreation camps”
“They are called recreation camps. But what we’ve noticed is that the biggest groups of children are sent not during the summer, but during the school year when the school is in session,” she continued. Their research became more intensive into what exactly the children were being taught and what activities they took part in. “What we noticed was several things which basically add up to erasing the Ukrainian identity,” said Syniuk. “What the children were taught, was political indoctrination or religious indoctrination, sometimes militarisation,” added Kateryna Rashevska legal expert for Ukraine NGO the Regional Centre for Human Rights.
The curriculum doesn’t include any Ukrainian. “The textbooks, use all the Russian propaganda narratives, starting with the Great Patriotic War and justifying the current aggression in Ukraine,” says Syniuk. In addition, she says, “children are heavily used in propaganda opportunities in public. They are asked very traumatic questions. And that brings children to tears. And that is then broadcasted…They are meeting local military units, local law enforcement people. They show children how to deal with guns, with weapons. They are photographed wearing uniforms, also including these Z signs”.
“A case of discriminatory persecution”
In addition, the researchers say they found evidence that some children have been taken to camps both in Belarus and in Russia and that the authorities are “basically cycling these children through the system, which includes camps in Russia, also camps in the occupied territories [of Ukraine] and camps in Belarus,” according to Syniuk.
It’s partly because of this new evidence that the NGO report does not use the term deportation. “We are trying to shift the focus from only deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the eradication of their national identity. Which is first of all, as the crime against humanity, a case of discriminatory persecution,” explained Rashevska, “We are insisting that Ukrainian children are discriminated just because they are children.”
In their submission to the ICC, the researchers identified high ranking officials they believe may be responsible. A representative from Freedom House Ukraine, which helped coordinate the research, says it was important to have included in the team Belarus researchers from human rights organisation Viasna and especially the analysts from BelPol, former police and military who have left the country, who “understand the hierarchy”. The report identifies Alexander Lukashenko as one of those responsible, because he signed a decree personally in 2021 to allow the children to be transferred. Belarus has been part of the ‘Union State’ since 1999, which provides more control to Russia over Belarus. This structure, says Syniuk, “has its own organisational structure and its own budget” some of which was used for the “indoctrination”. Some of the officials running the Union State were also identified as responsible for the persecution of the children.
Are ICC prosecutors interested in Belarus?
The shift of legal focus from only deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the eradication of their national Ukrainian identity also led the researchers to a consideration of the specific intent by the Russian and Belarussian agents to destroy, at least in part, a Ukrainian national group – which could be a constituent of a genocidal intent.
The NGO researchers think it may be possible to prove; the same evidence can be categorised both to prove the crime of discriminatory persecution, and other crimes, under the Rome Statute, including war crimes, and the crime of genocide. But, said Rashevska, “we are not insisting today, because we still don’t have a strong evidence base that Russians have committed the crime of genocide. [However,] we are insisting that, first of all, Russian agents and Belarussian agents, are acting with the intent to destroy, at least culturally, at least a social unit and a part of the Ukrainian national group as a protected group under the genocide convention.”
With this latest submission, Syniuk says “we received a lot of clarifying questions [from the ICC prosecutor’s office], so people were definitely interested in the topic.” Gabija Grigaitė-Daugirdė, the deputy minister of Justice who was in the Netherlands on behalf of Lithuania for the referral is less certain. “To make sure the court doesn’t forget about Belarus, it has to be constantly reminded”, she says.
