{"id":4542,"date":"2026-08-01T17:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/4542\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T17:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T17:00:11","slug":"the-european-nation-embracing-russia-style-propaganda-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/4542\/","title":{"rendered":"The European nation embracing Russia-style ‘propaganda’ laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the Belarusian regime passed a sweeping new law earlier this year banning \u201cLGBTQ<\/a> propaganda,\u201d it took less than two weeks to designate Jane Baziuk an \u201cextremist\u201d.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter that Baziuk was now living in Poland<\/a>, or that they had been actively trying to keep a low profile.<\/p>\n

Since leaving Brest in 2022 to move to Poland, Baziuk had been volunteering for a youth educational initiative and sharing queer content on their social media. For two years, they \u2013 Baziuk is non-binary and uses they\/them pronouns \u2013 had managed to stay beneath the radar, or so they thought. Then a friend saw their name on the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, I didn\u2019t even believe it,\u201d Baziuk told The i Paper. An updated list of \u201cextremist formations\u201d had mentioned Baziuk\u2019s name. No one informed them officially about the designation. <\/p>\n

Baziuk feared for their family, who had remained in Belarus<\/a>, and warned them about the possibility of being searched or questioned by security forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me time to realise the scale of what was happening \u2013 that the state had actually targeted me and was trying to complicate my life, even though I was no longer in the country,\u201d Baziuk said, adding: \u201cPressure continues from a distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belarus\u2019 crackdown follows a path first laid out by Vladimir Putin<\/a>. In 2013, Russia<\/a> passed its own anti-LGBT+ \u201cpropaganda\u201d law, which banned the promotion of \u201cnon-traditional family values\u201d to children. In 2022, this was extended to all age groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aleksandr Lukashenko<\/a>, Belarus\u2019s strongman president<\/a>, followed his Russian ally earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The new law, which went into effect in April, extends beyond LGBT+ issues by targeting child-free people, and by bundling homosexuality, gender reassignment and paedophilia within the same legal framework.<\/p>\n

Officially, it makes the \u201cpropaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children and paedophilia\u201d punishable by fines, community labour and up to 15 days in prison.<\/p>\n

Unofficially, it appears to be an attempt to cut off free speech and punish those who espouse different values.<\/p>\n

\u2018A model of hatred\u2019<\/p>\n

Baziuk is one of several Belarusian activists The i Paper spoke to, who have found themselves caught in the state\u2019s expanding campaign against anything it deems a threat to its vision of \u201ctraditional values\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ivan-Yanuk Salauyeu was forced to leave Belarus in 2024 after police leaked their gender identity and they were subsequently fired from their job as a teacher.<\/p>\n

\"LGBTLGBT+ activists in Minsk wave a Pride flag and an old Belarusian national flag in front of a police barricade in 2020 (Photo: TUT.by\/AP)<\/p>\n

Salauyeu said that authorities in Belarus have constructed \u201ca model of hatred<\/a>\u201d and that people there \u201care fed the wrong values and are taught to hate those who are different\u201d.<\/p>\n

LGBT+ people \u201care not protected by law and are being systematically destroyed as human beings\u201d, they added.<\/p>\n

Deliberately cryptic, the new law bans the dissemination of information \u201cintended to influence citizens\u2019 perceptions\u201d, while giving authorities wide discretion to decide what constitutes \u201cpropaganda\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alisa Sarmant, director of TG House<\/a>, a trans-led support organisation in Belarus, warned that in practice \u201cvirtually everyone\u201d \u2013 activists, journalists, educators, NGO staff and ordinary social media users \u2013 may be at risk.<\/p>\n

During Lukashenko\u2019s three-decade rule, his regime has detained tens of thousands of people<\/a>, criminalised dissent and subjected political prisoners to torture.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018People are detained on fabricated grounds and taken to police stations,\u2019 says Alisa Sarmant, pictured, who heads a trans-led support organisation in Belarus<\/p>\n

Sarmant said that entrapment and raids on private gatherings are now regular occurrences.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are detained on fabricated grounds and taken to police stations, where they face beatings, humiliation and threats,\u201d she told The i Paper. \u201cMany are forced to go into hiding or urgently leave the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarmant said that entrapment through dating apps<\/a> is now also widely used, with individuals invited to meetings, where they are detained and often coerced into co-operation.<\/p>\n

As a political activist, she has faced mounting pressure, not only because of her work, but because of her own identity.<\/p>\n

In a worrying sign, in recent years similar legislation has been unveiled in Bulgaria<\/a>, Hungary<\/a>, Georgia and Kazakhstan, all states with historical, political and cultural ties to Russia.<\/p>\n

\u2018The key is targeting minorities of all kinds\u2019<\/p>\n

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International\u2019s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, said that Belarus is now following this repressive model<\/a>, using \u201ctraditional values\u201d to expand the state\u2019s ability to punish dissent \u2013 a trajectory that has helped Russia turn its anti-LGBT+ crackdown into a wider tool of repression.<\/p>\n

She told The i Paper that Russia provides a \u201cblueprint\u201d for other European states, and that Belarus will not be the last to succumb to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the range of tools in the [authoritarian] toolkits, they all basically deploy the same,\u201d she said, highlighting the silencing of independent media<\/a> and civil society, the manipulation of law enforcement and the elimination of other political parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key is targeting minorities of all kinds,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\"BelarussianRiot police detain participants of a 2010 gay rights protest in Minsk (Photo: Victor Drachev\/AFP)<\/p>\n

However, Struthers warned against treating every new law as an act of Russian interference abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it is in direct connection to Russian influence, that is very difficult to determine,\u201d she said. Instead, she sees it as part of a much wider global regression in human rights<\/a>, fuelled by increasingly authoritarian politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite being physically distant from Belarus, those in exile still feel the worrying reach of the regime<\/a> back home, and recall the \u201cpainful mix\u201d of relief and survivor\u2019s guilt that ran through them on hearing about the new law.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit me like a physical blow,\u201d said Salauyeu. \u201cI felt a wave of horror and a profound sense of grief for those still trapped there. My immediate thought was: \u2018They are turning my home into a prison without walls\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added that \u201cit felt like the regime was officially declaring a witch hunt<\/a>, codifying hatred into law just to tighten their grip on society\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt confirmed every fear that had forced me to flee \u2013 it was a grim validation that the country I love was moving toward total darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salauyeu also said that after leaving Belarus, they learnt they\u2019d been charged under the criminal code with promotion, facilitating, or aiding and abetting extremist activity. They are now on the wanted lists in both Belarus and Russia, underscoring just how closely the two countries are moving with their \u201cpropaganda\u201d laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the Belarusian regime passed a sweeping new law earlier this year banning \u201cLGBTQ propaganda,\u201d it took less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70,32,1956,101,372,55],"class_list":["post-4542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alexander-lukashenko","tag-belarus","tag-free-speech","tag-human-rights","tag-lgbtq","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/belarus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}