Head of iSANS Human Rights and Rule of Law Unit Yuri Dzhibladze took part in the OSCE human dimension conference entitled «Safeguarding Civic Space in the Digital Age», held in Vienna on 11-12 May, with participation of leadership of OSCE institutions, representatives of OSCE participating states and civil society. At the second session of the conference on 12 May, Yuri delivered a presentation «Disinformation and Propaganda as a Threat to Civic Space: The Case of Belarus», where he presented analysis of the goals, instruments and impacts of propaganda and disinformation by the Lukashenka regime and its impact on civil space both inside and outside of Belarus, and offered recommendations to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, OSCE participating states, global online platforms, and civil society. We publish the text of the presentation.
Remarks at the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Conference “Safeguarding Civic Space in the Digital Age”. Session 2, “Disinformation and civic space: implications for human rights and democracy”
Vienna, 12 May 2026
by Yuri Dzhibladze, Head of Human Rights and Rule of Law Unit, International Strategic Action Network for Security – iSANS
I am speaking on behalf of International Strategic Action Network for Security, an analytical and advocacy centre working to detect and counter hybrid threats to democracy, rule of law and sovereignty of states.
To illustrate the devastating impact of disinformation and propaganda on civil space, I will use the example of Belarus and offer both country-specific and general recommendations, based on our many years of monitoring, research and analysis.
Disinformation and propaganda play a key role in maintaining the system of control over society in Belarus. Firstly, through state-controlled media, the authority of the illegitimate “president” is consolidated and a cult of personality of Aliaksandr Lukashenka is cultivated. Secondly, propaganda portrays Belarus as a guardian of peace, stability and Christian values, which, in alliance with Russia, stands up to pressure from the hostile West. Western countries and especially the immediate neighbours are portrayed as aggressive, dangerous, sinful, and rotting. Democracy and human rights are ridiculed.
Furthermore, Belarus, being entirely dependent on the Kremlin, provides support – including ideological support – for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Media outlets controlled by the Lukashenka regime, alongside Moscow-based channels, justify the full-scale invasion and portray Ukraine in a negative light, guilty of the war. Statements by some propagandists of the regime, alongside those by Russian figures, contain indications of a grave international crime – incitement to genocide of Ukrainians.
However, the main targets of disinformation and propaganda are Belarusian citizens who oppose the regime. Disinformation is indeed one of the most important tools used by the Lukashenka regime to eliminate civil space, alongside the activities of punitive law enforcement agencies and secret services. The aim is to disintegrate, discredit and intimidate civil society, democratic forces, and journalists, to undermine their credibility, and stage provocations against public figures. The regime-controlled media spew forth a torrent of lies, curses and threats against critics of the regime.
The task of systematically brainwashing the public through disinformation and propaganda is made easier by the fact that, following the mass protests of 2020, the remnants of relative freedom of expression in the Belarusian media landscape were completely eradicated, all independent media outlets were shut down, and dozens of journalists were imprisoned or forced out of the country. To prevent free speech from entering the country from the outside, the authorities block the websites and social media accounts of exiled independent Belarusian publications, subject them to hacking and DDoS attacks, place publications and journalists on the lists of extremists, prosecute them in absentia, and sentence them to long prison terms.
Every day, Belarusian state television broadcasts fake news stories, programmes and entire propaganda films full of disinformation that ‘expose’ the democratic forces as puppets of other states on the payroll, corrupt individuals, and incompetent losers with no legitimacy whatsoever in Belarus.
Moreover, it is common practice for the regime’s propagandists to make public calls for physical violence, abductions or even the murder of dissidents.
At the same time, propagandists often assist the security services in their crackdown on critics of the regime and willingly take part in repression. For example, they unlawfully publish the personal details of protesters obtained from the KGB, thereby endangering not only them but also their relatives who remain in Belarus.
Propagandists also aggressively target relatives of political exiles who remain in the country. They visit their homes accompanied by law enforcement officers and film so-called ‘repentant videos’ with relatives, in which they are forced to condemn or even disown their loved ones, or, conversely, urge them to return to Belarus. These videos are then shown on television. The International Committee for the Investigation of Torture in Belarus recognised the widespread practice of ‘repentant videos’ as a distinct form of torture.
We suggest the following recommendations to counter disinformation and propaganda, including those spread by Belarusian government-controlled channels:
- To democratic states and the European Union: expand sanctions targeting propaganda and disinformation outlets and individuals, including from Russia and Belarus;
- To global online platforms: do not rely fully on automatic algorithms, restore or expand fact-checking teams and more systematically identify and block disinformation and propaganda accounts and channels;
- To civil society organisations and journalistic organisations: expand monitoring and documentation of statements by propagandists and state officials that target civil space in order to identify specific threats to civil space and to inform policies of democratic states and intergovernmental organisations, including those regarding blocking of channels and applying sanctions;
- To States parties to the Rome Statute: submit additional referrals of the situation in Ukraine to the Prosecutor of the ICC, requesting the Prosecutor to include investigation into alleged incitement to genocide of Ukrainians by Russian and Belarusian propagandists into the ongoing investigation of crimes perpetrated in Ukraine.
To the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media:
- Activate work to address propaganda and disinformation with a view of their very negative impact on both civil space and state sovereignty as well as them being a detrimental factor for freedom of the media by undermining its credibility and being accompanied by wiping out independent media to make propaganda work more successfully. Expert roundtables, media capacity building and public education programmes are important but insufficient to respond to the huge role these malign tools play in preparing and justifying repression, conflicts, aggression, and war crimes, and indoctrinating the public as well as undermining credibility of the media. More active work is needed, with more conclusive recommendations for states and online platforms, more visible input, including more work on building alliances of states and civil society actors that would support this work through advocacy.
- Given unlikely prospects of adopting an OSCE Ministerial Council decision on addressing propaganda and disinformation, cooperate more actively in this field with other intergovernmental organisations which have recently had progress in adopting their norms and regulations to address the problem of propaganda and disinformation, such as the European Union and the Council of Europe.
- Develop RFoM recommendations or guidelines on addressing the problem of propaganda and disinformation, especially in the context of the functioning of online platforms.
- Promote the idea of developing international guidelines on the principles of countering propaganda and disinformation while protecting freedom of expression. Civil society and the academic community could play an important role in launching a process of elaborating expert guidelines, like it was done, for instance, in developing the Rabat Principles on combating hate speech. These expert guidelines, developed by non-governmental experts, could afterwards be endorsed by one of or several official international bodies, including the RFoM.
- Activate the work on developing self-regulation by the media and building up on ethical standards of journalism in the context of addressing the problem of propaganda and disinformation.
- Work together with civil society groups by investing in education of society members, explaining to the public the dangerous impact of propagandistic and disinformation narratives, promoting critical thinking and media literacy, and fostering community dialogue.
- Address the lack of information security and information sovereignty in Europe in the context of functioning of global online platforms as information emergency.
- Develop internal procedures on more effective RFoM engagement with civil society. Expand the circle of civil society partners of the RFoM, going beyond the usual circle of partners mostly limited to media freedom NGO to involve other NGOs, initiatives, civic groups, movements, etc., that could be RFoM’s allies, including in the efforts to combat propaganda and disinformation.
