In an update on its website on 6 August 2025, Front Line Defenders in raising alarm over the worsening conditions of detention for prominent Belarusian human rights defender Nasta Loika, currently held in Homel Correctional Facility No. 4. On August 1, independent Belarusian media reported that Loika had been transferred to a secure housing unit under harsher detention conditions — a common punitive tactic used by the Belarusian authorities against political prisoners. [see also; https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/11/07/the-sad-story-of-nasta-loika-human-rights-defender-behind-bars-in-belarus/]
As described in the statement, these stricter conditions mean confinement in a tiny 4-square-meter cell without privacy or proper sanitation:
Loika’s ongoing persecution is part of a broader crackdown on civil society in Belarus. A lawyer and educator, she has long been involved in documenting state abuses, challenging Belarus’s vague and punitive “anti-extremist” legislation, and advocating for migrants and stateless persons. Her organization, Human Constanta, was forcibly dissolved by the state in 2021 as part of an orchestrated campaign against human rights groups. It now operates in exile.
Nasta Loika has been imprisoned since June 2023, when the Minsk City Court sentenced her to seven years in prison, accusing her of “incitement to social enmity.” In a further act of repression, she was later added to the KGB’s list of individuals “involved in terrorist activities.” Her supporters have also been targeted: in May 2025, the Instagram page @let_nasta_go, which calls for her release, was declared “extremist.”
In early July 2025, a pro-government Telegram channel claimed Aliaksandr Lukashenka had pardoned Loika, publishing a photo of a handwritten pardon request. While her colleagues acknowledged the handwriting resembled hers, they could not confirm whether the letter was written freely or under coercion. Later, another Telegram channel associated with the Belarusian police dismissed the report as a hoax.
“Front Line Defenders is deeply appalled by the continued persecution of Nasta Loika,” the organization said in its statement. “The organisation condemns the use of strict conditions of detention as part of the reprisals against her for peaceful and legitimate human rights work. Front Line Defenders expresses grave concern about the inhumane conditions of detention the woman human rights defender is enduring and reiterates its call to the Belarus authorities to quash Nasta Loika’s conviction and facilitate her immediate release.”
https://spring96.org/en/news/118431
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.