Watchdog

The Supreme Court of Belarus has labeled a group called BYPOL, which unites former law enforcement officers who support opposition politicians, as a terrorist organization.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said on August 31 that it initiated the hearing, which also outlawed BYPOL's structural branches, the Situational Analytical Center and Victory Mobilization Plan, as terrorist groups.

They accuse BYPOL of involvement in the "formation of radical ideas in society and pushing citizens to conduct extremist activities aiming to change the constitutional order" of Belarus.

BYPOL was founded in 2020 in the wake of unprecedented mass protests questioning official presidential election results giving a victory and sixth term to authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka earlier in the year.

Lukashenka had been in power since 1994.

BYPOL's members have said the group was created to investigate police brutality during the violent dispersal of the anti-Lukashenka rallies and to convince active police officers to "take the Belarusian people's side" to stop the massive crackdown to suppress the monthslong protests.

The opposition and the West say the poll was rigged and followed the persecution and exclusion of potential challengers.

Many opposition politicians and activists have since been forced to leave the country or have been jailed.

The trial has opened in a fraud and assault case against the mother of two outspoken critics of authorities in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya in a prosecution that critics insist is politically motivated.

The OVD-Info rights watchdog said on August 31 that the lawyers of defendant Zarema Musayeva requested at the first court session in the Chechen capital, Grozny, that their client be released to house arrest, citing her diabetes.

The court rejected the motion and quickly adjourned until September 7.

Musayeva is the mother of Abubakar and Ibragim Yangulbayev, both of whom have fled abroad citing harassment from Chechen authorities over their online criticism of Kremlin-backed Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chechen police and security officers seized Musayeva in January in her apartment in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, some 1,800 kilometers from Chechnya, and forcibly returned her to Grozny.

Kadyrov, other Chechen officials, and a member of the Russian Duma have publicly vowed to kill all members of the Yangulbayevs' family, calling them "terrorists."

Journalists, rights activists, and other Russians have urged the government to punish those who issued the threats.

Abubakar Yangulbayev has accused Kadyrov's law enforcement and security officers of "lawlessness on a daily basis in Chechnya" and said the case against his mother is Kadyrov's retaliation for his activities.

Both brothers have said they faced years of pressure from Chechen authorities over their online criticism of Kadyrov and the rights situation in Chechnya.

Many of their relatives have been similarly harassed in Chechnya and even deprived of their homes since Kadyrov and his people vowed to kill them and their family.

The activists' father, retired federal judge Saidi Yangulbayev, and a sister fled Russia in January following the threats.

Russian and international human rights groups have for years accused Kadyrov of overseeing grave human rights abuses, including abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the persecution of the LGBT community.

Kremlin critics say Putin has turned a blind eye to the abuses because he relies on the former rebel commander to control separatist sentiment and violence in Chechnya.