On 22 December 2023, in solidarity with political prisoners and their family members in Belarus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took a decision to make a financial contribution of EUR 35,000 into the European Endowment for Democracy with the aim of the funds to be channelled to the International Accountability Platform for Belarus, which collects and preserves evidence of human rights violations in Belarus, as well as providing support to victims of political repression.
The regime’s crackdown on civil society in Belarus continues, with around 1,500 political prisoners currently held in prisons.
In January 2021, an international platform of non-governmental organisations was launched to collect, consolidate and preserve, in line with the United Nations standards, information and evidence on systematic violations of human rights committed by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus.
Leading the platform is a Denmark-based international NGO Dignity (Danish Institute Against Torture), which works closely with the Belarusian civil society organisation Viasna. Other members of the consortium are a London-based NGO Redress and the International Committee for the Investigations of Torture in Belarus.
The International Accountability Platform for Belarus has been supported by a number of countries such as Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, as well as the European Union.