The campaign has widened from students and staff to relatives in Belarus, with Amnesty International warning of a possible show trial.
Belarusian authorities have intensified their persecution of students, graduates and staff linked to the European Humanities University (EHU), which operates in exile in Vilnius, Amnesty International has said. Searches, interrogations, detentions and threats have been reported in Belarus, including demands that students abandon the university and return home, according to a report by Belsat on 1 September 2026.
The pressure has also reached the families of people studying or working at the university. Amnesty warned that relatives were being used to intimidate Belarusian citizens who are pursuing education abroad, despite being outside the authorities’ direct reach. The campaign matters because it seeks not only to punish dissent, but to prevent young Belarusians from accessing an independent education in the first place.
Relatives used as leverage
Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s director for eastern Europe and central Asia, warned of the risk of a demonstrative “anti-extremist” trial. She said the intimidation campaign had now spread to students’ relatives, showing that the Belarusian authorities were prepared to repress their own citizens even when those citizens were connected to an institution operating outside the country.
The reported methods include searches of homes, questioning, detention and threats of criminal proceedings. Families have allegedly been threatened with punishment even over the fact that they paid for a relative’s education at the EHU. For students abroad, the message is direct: continuing their studies may expose parents and other relatives in Belarus to official retaliation.
That approach turns family connections into an instrument of state control. Students may be physically present in the European Union, but their relatives remain vulnerable to pressure from Belarusian law-enforcement bodies. The result is a form of repression that crosses the country’s borders without requiring the authorities to bring the students themselves back under direct supervision.
Education treated as a political threat
The campaign reflects the regime of Alexander Lukashenko’s fear that independent learning could encourage and spread opposition views. The EHU, based in Vilnius after moving into exile, has become a target not because of a single reported incident at the university, but because it offers Belarusians a modern education outside the ideological control of the authorities.
By presenting study at the university as grounds for interrogation or punishment, the Belarusian regime is narrowing the space available to young people seeking opportunities abroad. Financial support for a student, attendance at the university or continued association with it can become a source of danger for an entire family.
The pressure therefore serves two purposes. It aims to disrupt the education of students who have already left Belarus and to deter others from following them. Threats that students should leave the EHU and return home are also intended to push them back into a country where, according to the Amnesty warning, they may face further danger.
A campaign beyond Belarus’s borders
Amnesty’s assessment points to an expansion of Belarus’s repressive practice rather than an isolated campaign against one educational institution. The authorities are attempting to intimidate citizens after they have travelled to the EU, using relatives as leverage and treating the pursuit of independent education as a political act.
The potential “anti-extremist” case would give the campaign a public and exemplary character, particularly if students, graduates or university staff were placed at the centre of proceedings. Even without such a trial, the reported searches, arrests and threats can have a wider effect: families may be forced to choose between supporting a student’s future and reducing their own exposure to state punishment.
The immediate unresolved issue is whether the reported intimidation will develop into the kind of public prosecution Amnesty has warned about. A formal case would make the threat more visible, but the existing pressure on relatives is already designed to achieve a quieter objective — making study abroad appear too dangerous to pursue.
Should European governments and universities respond primarily by expanding protection for students and their families, or by imposing further pressure on the Belarusian authorities?
