The main figures, according to human rights defenders:

• By the end of 2022, there were

  1,446 political prisoners in Belarus.

• Human rights activists recognized 889

  people as political prisoners during the past year.

• Most of the political prisoners are men, there are

  1,284

  of them.

  162

  female political prisoners were behind bars at the end of 2022.

• 532

  people served their sentences in colonies,

  258

  people - in "chemistry",

  6

  people - in an educational colony;

  The conditions of detention of

  38 political prisoners worsened and they were transferred from the colony to the prison.

• 460 people were in pretrial detention

  by the end of 2022.

  Eduard Babaryka is being held in pretrial detention center-1 for the longest term under investigation without trial: as of December 31, he spent 927 days in prison.

• Another

  2

  people are kept under "house arrest".

  Several political prisoners were in the ICU under administrative arrest.

  The whereabouts of at least

  145

  political prisoners are not known for sure to "Viasna" human rights defenders.

• Out of the total number of political prisoners ,

  70

  people were imprisoned for 10 or more years

  : 27 people were sentenced to terms of imprisonment of 10-12 years, 17 people received 13-15 years in prison, another 15 people received terms of 16-19 years, 10 people sentenced to 20-23 years of imprisonment.

  Mikalai Autukhovich received

  the most severe sentence - the maximum term of

  25 years .

• At the end of 2022, there were at least

  15 married couples

  among police prisoners who were sentenced to prison terms or were under investigation in a pre-trial detention center.

• Among other things, last year

  108

  cultural figures, 32 media representatives, 6 lawyers, 6 human rights defenders of "Viasna" remained behind bars.

• Among the political prisoners are at least

  25 pensioners

  .

  The oldest is 74-year-old Natalya Taran, sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment under defamatory articles of the Criminal Code.

• 74 people with disabilities or serious illnesses

  are in unbearable conditions of imprisonment .

• During 2022, at

  least

  120 people were kept behind bars

  in connection with the "Zeltsar case"

  .

  A significant part of them were sentenced to imprisonment for terms from 1.5 to 6.5 years.

• The KGB of Belarus included at

  least

  148 political prisoners in the so-called list of "terrorists".

• At least

  253 political prisoners have been released

  , having fully served their term, since the first verdicts on politically motivated criminal cases.