The United States has slapped visa bans on the heads of Minsk's notorious Akrestsina detention center for their involvement in "gross violations" of human rights following last year's "fraudulent" presidential election that handed authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth consecutive term in office.
In a statement on December 10, the U.S. State Department named Ihar Kenyukh and Yauheni Shapetska, accusing them of being involved in "the torture and/or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees" during Lukashenka's brutal crackdown on dissent after the August 2020 vote.
The European Union, the United States, and other countries have passed several rounds of sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over its crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement and independent media in the wake of the election, as well as for an ongoing migration crisis along the border between Belarus and the EU that the West says Minsk is orchestrating.
The State Department said it welcomed "the close coordination with the EU, U.K., and Canada last week on our strongest sanctions package to date on Belarus, which jointly imposes costs on the Lukashenka regime for its continued repression of the Belarusian people."
Thousands of Belarusians have been detained during the countrywide protests against the election results, which the opposition and the West say were rigged, and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown. Many of Belarus's opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country.
Lukashenka rejects the allegations of electoral fraud and refuses to negotiate with the opposition.
He also denies accusations that he engineered the crisis along the EU's eastern flank to destabilize the 27-member bloc in retaliation for sanctions imposed for human rights abuses.