GENEVA, June 27, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The human rights picture in Belarus is "dire" and getting worse, the UN's top rights body heard Thursday in a grim update revealing systematic rights violations.

Ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, Belarus has outlawed all genuine opposition parties and faces accusations of persecuting dissidents.

It is the only European country to retain the death penalty.

Presenting an annual report covering the year through March, Nils Muiznieks, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, said matters had "continued to deteriorate, with new forms of repression added to old, familiar forms of repression".

And since March, the situation "remains dire, with no signs of progress or improvement", he told the UN Human Rights Council.

Lukashenko claimed a record seventh term in elections in January that observers dismissed as a farce.

"Elections have been a catalyst for human rights violations in Belarus... the closer the elections, the greater the repression," said Muiznieks.

He said that as the election approached, "persecution intensified" of family members of those recognised as political prisoners -- and also of people who had sent those prisoners letters, money or aid packages.

He said the Belarusian authorities "increasingly resorted to a new form of transnational repression: trials in absentia against Belarusian citizens living abroad, especially of exiled politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and activists".

- 'Political persecution' -

Muiznieks said the "most worrying" ongoing trend in Belarus was "political persecution", with the authorities going after "any real, perceived or potential opposition to the government".

The eastern European country still holds more than 1,000 political prisoners in its jails, according to Belarusian human rights group Viasna.

"If these figures are even close to being accurate, Belarus probably has the most political prisoners per capita in the world," said Muiznieks.

Belarusian opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky was released on Saturday following an appeal from the White House.

Tikhanovsky, 46, had been imprisoned for more than five years.

Muiznieks said there had been several waves of presidential pardons, affecting over 200 people, since July 2024.

But he said these pardons had sometimes been accompanied by new rights violations, including "forcing people to make propaganda videos expressing remorse" or to sign cooperation agreements.

"Those who remain in detention face terrible conditions and often brutal treatment, which sometimes has lethal consequences," he added.

UN special rapporteurs are independent figures appointed by the Human Rights Council to report their findings. They do not, therefore, speak for the United Nations itself.

Muiznieks said he had sought cooperation with the authorities in Minsk but his requests for a visit have gone ignored.