Belarus: doctors, the police and compulsory treatment

• Detention. Under the custody law, medics examine a person on arrival and after any injury, and the results are given to the detainee and their lawyer. You can ask to be examined by doctors from another state hospital; a refusal can be appealed to the prosecutor or a court. In practice, UN experts found that in the cases they studied neither police, judges nor detention medics recorded injuries, and guards often ignored requests for medical help.
• Hospitals notify the police. Under art. 46 of the Law on Health Care, a hospital must itself inform law enforcement if harm may have been caused by unlawful acts. Under a Council of Ministers resolution, the patient's own words are enough: the police are phoned at once and a written notice follows within a day. On written request from investigators, courts or operational-search bodies, medical confidentiality is lifted without consent.
• Compulsory treatment. Viasna counted at least 33 people in political cases sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment (February 2025), the same figure UN experts cited in April 2025. Such cases are heard behind closed doors, and the person is called 'a person who committed a socially dangerous act'. Measures are ordered under chapter 14 of the Criminal Code, from outpatient treatment to a hospital with strict observation.
• Medical care in prison. Viasna reports that by the end of August 2026, 9 political prisoners had died in custody since 2020 and at least 185 were vulnerable because of health, age or conditions. UN experts consider that at least two of four deaths in 2024 were linked to late or poor medical care. In 2018 the UN Committee against Torture noted that access to a doctor in Belarus is at the discretion of law enforcement.
• Where to turn: Viasna (@ViasnaSOS). It is designated 'extremist' in Belarus, and contacting it can lead to prosecution. If you are in Belarus, pass information through a trusted person abroad or from a device that is not checked, over a secure channel.

Designations of organisations in this guide: Viasna Human Rights Centre (extremist in Belarus). Contacting them carries a risk: do not write from a phone that may be seized, and do not repost their materials.

current as of 26 September 2026. More: Belarus law on custody (2003), art. 15: medical examination; Belarus Law on Health Care, art. 46: medical confidentiality; Belarus Council of Ministers resolution 831 (2024): how hospitals notify the police; Belarus Criminal Code, chapter 14: compulsory security and treatment measures; UN Group of Independent Experts on Belarus, A/HRC/58/68 (2025); Viasna: compulsory psychiatric treatment of political prisoners (14.02.2025, archived, in Russian) (extremist in Belarus); UN experts on coercive psychiatric treatment in Belarus (24.04.2025, archived); Reform.news citing Viasna: political prisoners at the end of August 2026 (in Russian) (extremist in Belarus); UN Committee against Torture: concluding observations on Belarus, CAT/C/BLR/CO/5 (2018), paras 7-8