The President of Belarus, Alelsander Lukashenko has announced the establishment of a single charitable foundation. According to him, this foundation will replace civil society organisations (CSOs), which have been closed down in Belarus over the past two years. While announcing the idea to establish the charitable foundation, he stated: “I know that many large and small foundations moved out from Belarus. We simply evicted some of them, because you know what they were doing – they tried to stage a coup with foreign money. Therefore, when we studied the work of these foundations and other things, we had to stop them”. He also emphasised that “Naturally, the pure and sincere people who want to be involved in charity work will gladly be involved in this foundation. Because they will understand that not a single kopeck will be spent improperly but will be spent for higher purposes”.
According to civil society representatives such foundation will aim to perform the same function as CSOs, but will operate “under the auspices” of President Lukashenko.
CSOs have left the country or have been liquidated due to mass searches, interference, prosecution and intimidation
Earlier, when the President had announced that “active work on various CSOs was to be launched in Belarus”, mass searches were launched in CSOs’ offices and at the homes of human rights defenders and civil society representatives. Some of these organisations had been working in Belarus for more than 10 years, and governmental agencies had been cooperating with them for years.
Since last year, more than 1000 CSOs have been liquidated in Belarus including human rights, environmental, charitable, social, youth, sport, animal protection and other organisations.
To learn more details, read our 2021 Belarus country report.