Belarusians fleeing repression at home say they face new threats and intimidation abroad

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — More than a half-million Belarusians have fled their country in the past four years as the authoritarian government launched a harsh crackdown on its political opponents. Some of them, however, are discovering that they can't escape intimidation and threats in their new lives abroad.

Dziana Maiseyenka, 28, was detained without warning while crossing the border from Armenia to Georgia, where she had taken refuge from Belarus a year ago to escape what she called “the nightmare at home.”

Authorities in Minsk, she was told, had issued an international arrest warrant against her on charges of “organizing mass unrest.”

She knows what a return to Belarus will mean: Her father was imprisoned for nearly three years on similar charges. When he was released last year, he was promptly arrested again.

As hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko seeks his seventh term next year to extend his three-decade rule, opposition leaders in exile say he is ramping up the pressure on Belarusians who moved abroad. The aim is to avoid a repeat of the mass protests that broke out around the 2020 election by quashing any opposition support from abroad.

Months of large demonstrations over that widely denounced balloting resulted in more than 65,000 people arrested over the last four years, with many of them severely beaten, according to the Belarusian human rights group Viasna. Its Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialiatski, is among those imprisoned.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was Lukashenko’s main challenger in 2020 before fleeing to Lithuania the day after the election, says Belarus has launched a systematic campaign against dissidents abroad.

“Ahead of the 2025 campaign, repressions against Belarusians abroad will most likely only intensify as the regime tries to intimidate those who call for increased international sanctions and nonrecognition of Lukashenko’s legitimacy,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Tsikhanouskaya said her office gets hundreds of requests a month from Belarusians abroad who say criminal cases have been opened against them in their homeland, and it is intervening in at least 15 countries where extradition requests have been made. Other emigres complain their identity documents have been invalidated by the government in Minsk or that relatives at home have come under pressure.

Pavel Latushka, a prominent opposition figure in exile in Poland, says he's received threats, which Polish authorities are investigating, and his website came under a cyberattack that he blames on Lukashenko's government.

Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who sought political asylum in Poland three years ago after the Tokyo Olympics, also said she had received threatening messages in Warsaw.

One said "they would rip my stomach open if I went outside,” Tsimanouskaya told AP at the Paris Olympics.

In another, separate instance, she said she noticed “two men were constantly following me” in her neighborhood. "They went outside when I went outside. This was not some kind of coincidence," Tsimanouskaya said, adding that it ended after she reported it to police. At the Paris Games, Polish team officials advised her to keep to the more secure athletes village whenever possible.

Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka said the Belarus KGB is infiltrating the diaspora, organizing surveillance and taking video of large protests abroad, and then initiating hundreds of criminal cases at home.

“Official Minsk has begun sending out extradition requests en masse, and the logic here is very simple -- even if they manage to bring back only a few from abroad, everyone will be scared,” he said.

Independent director Andrei Hniot, a Lukashenko critic who made films about the Minsk protests, was arrested last year at Belgrade’s airport on an Interpol warrant at the request of Belarusian authorities for alleged tax evasion. A Serbian court in June ordered his extradition, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen intervened.

In a letter to the Belarusian opposition office, she said Serbian authorities were told Hniot’s case “was politically motivated” and he “would face reprisals” if returned to his homeland.

“The route to Belarus is a direct road to prison,” Hniot told AP from Belgrade, where he's under house arrest while awaiting a final ruling.

In August, two anti-Lukashenko activists were deported from Sweden after being refused political asylum. The mother and son who had participated in protests in Belarus were taken by Swedish authorities to the Lithuania-Belarus frontier and handed over to Belarusian border guards. The son was detained at the border.

“Belarusians need European solidarity not in words but in deeds," said Zmitser Vaserman, who represents a Belarusian exile group in Sweden, urging a "European moratorium on the deportation of Belarusian citizens who are persecuted for political reasons.”

To protect the interests of Belarusians abroad, the opposition has created “people’s embassies” in 24 countries, including in EU member states, the U.K., Canada, Australia and Brazil.

Belarusian authorities responded by declaring these “people’s embassies” to be extremist groups; cooperation with them is punishable by up to seven years in prison and confiscation of property. In the spring, authorities carried out a wave of searches and arrests inside Belarus, initiating hundreds of criminal cases at home and abroad.

“Extremist groups have launched information campaigns to discredit our country in the eyes of Western politicians,” said Siarhei Kabakovich, spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Belarus. “The pseudo-embassies are trying to damage the national security of Belarus and are carrying out measures to isolate diplomatic missions of the Foreign Ministry system and block any contacts between foreign citizens, organizations and governments with Belarusian diplomats.”

In Vilnius, where opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya is based, several Belarusian institutions were attacked this month. Windows were broken at a Belarusian Orthodox church and a center of Belarusian culture, and obscene messages were left near a refugee shelter.

Lithuania's Foreign Ministry in a statement on X condemned “the acts of vandalism against the Belarusian community carried out according to the KGB playbook” and vowed to punish those responsible.

Tsikhanouskaya called for an investigation, blaming “the Lukashenko regime, which is constantly trying to create an atmosphere of fear and hate in Belarusian society.”

Belarus now requires its citizens to renew their passports inside the country. That leaves many exiles in a bind, fearing prosecution if they return home to get new documents.

Of particular concern are children born abroad to parents who cannot return to Belarus to get documents confirming their citizenship, said Anaïs Marin, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, because "this may lead to loss of proof of citizenship and, potentially, to statelessness.”

Many Belarusians returning home have been arrested at the border, said Tsikhanouskaya. Some record video confessions of repentance, which are widely believed to be coerced.

Katsiaryna Mendryk, a student at the University of Warsaw who was arrested in August, said in a subsequent video confession that she “really regrets participating in extremist activities.” She goes on trial this month, facing up to seven years in prison.

Maiseyenka, the woman detained at the Georgia-Armenia border, spent five days in limbo before returning safely to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Tsikhanouskaya's office intervened on her behalf, and Armenia decided not to extradite her, she told AP.

Maiseyenka said she was “a lucky exception” but "realized with horror how dangerous it is to be Belarusian.”

“Lukashenko is showing that he can hang the fate of any citizen by a thread,” she said. “This means that a Belarusian anywhere in the world needs to be prepared for unpleasant surprises.”

Associated Press writer James Ellingworth contributed to this report.

Andrei Hniot, a filmmaker and a prominent critic of the authoritarian government in Belarus, stands in his apartment in Belgrade, Serbia, where he is under house arrest on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

A tracking device is seen on the leg of Andrei Hniot, a filmmaker and a prominent critic of the authoritarian government in Belarus, currently under house arrest in Belgrade, Serbia, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

Andrei Hniot, a filmmaker and a prominent critic of the authoritarian government in Belarus, poses for a portrait in his apartment while under house arrest in Belgrade, Serbia, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

FILE – Former Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who sought political asylum in Poland three years ago, talks with teammates following their women's 4x100-meter relay heat at the Paris Olympics, on Aug. 8, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

FILE - Belarusian dissident Pavel Latushka, a prominent opposition figure in exile, talks on the phone in Warsaw, Poland, on Aug. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

FILE - Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, center, holds a portrait of her jailed husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, at a protest outside the Belarus Embassy, in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 8, 2024, demanding freedom for political prisoners. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)

FILE - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on May 8, 2024. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP, File)

CORRECTS THE NAME OF SOURCE - Dziana Maiseyenka, 28, who fled Belarus a year ago to escape a crackdown on government opponents, poses for a picture in Yerevan, Armenia, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (Hayk Baghdasaryan/Photolure via AP)

CORRECTS THE NAME OF SOURCE - Dziana Maiseyenka, 28, walks in a street in Yerevan, Armenia, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, after being denied entry to neighboring Georgia because an arrest warrant had been issued for her by authorities in Minsk. (Hayk Baghdasaryan/Photolure via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy" Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has faced a stream of allegations by women accusing him of sexual assault, was arrested late Monday in New York after he was indicted by a federal grand jury.

The indictment was sealed and details of the charges weren't immediately announced by prosecutors, but the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, confirmed in a statement that federal agents had Combs in custody.

“We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time," Williams said in a statement.

Combs was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby, according to a person familiar with the arrest who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said Combs had been cooperating with the investigation and had relocated to New York last week in anticipation of charges being brought.

“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office," Agnifilo said, describing his client as a music icon and a “loving family man.”

“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal,” Agnifilo said in a statement, adding "Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”

The criminal charges are a major but not unexpected takedown of one of the most prominent producers and most famous names in the history of hip-hop.

The federal investigation of Combs, 58, was revealed when Homeland Security Investigations agents served simultaneous search warrants and raided Combs' mansions in Los Angeles and Miami on March 25.

A day after the raids, his attorney Aaron Dyer called them “a gross use of military-level force,” said the allegations were “meritless."

Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, was at the center of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop battles of the 1990s as the partner and producer of the Notorious B.I.G., who was shot and killed in 1997. But like many of those who survived the era, his public image had softened with age into a genteel host of parties in Hollywood and the Hamptons, a fashion-forward businessman, and a doting father who spoiled his kids, some of whom lost their mother in 2018.

But a different image began emerging in November, when his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, became the first of several people to sue him for sexual abuse with stories of a steady stream of sex workers in drug-fueled settings where some of those involved were coerced or cajoled into sex.

In her November lawsuit, Cassie alleged years of abuse, including beatings and rape. Her suit also alleged Combs engaged in sex trafficking by “requiring her to engage in forced sexual acts in multiple jurisdictions” and by engaging in “harboring and transportation of Plaintiff for purposes of sex induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

It also said he compelled her to help him traffic male sex workers Combs would force Cassie to have sex with while he filmed.

The suit was settled the following day, but its reverberations would last far longer. Combs lost lingering allies, supporters and those reserving judgment when CNN in May aired a leaked video of him punching Cassie, kicking her and throwing her on the floor in a hotel hallway.

The next day, in his first real acknowledgement of wrongdoing since the stream of allegations began, Combs posted a social media video apologizing, saying “I was disgusted when I did it” and “I’m disgusted now.” Cassie’s lawsuit was followed by at least a half-dozen others in the ensuing months.

In February, a music producer filed a lawsuit alleging Combs coerced him to solicit prostitutes and pressured him to have sex with them.

Another of Combs’ accusers was a woman who said the rap producer raped her two decades ago when she was 17.

Another woman who filed a lawsuit, April Lampros, said she was a college student in 1994 when she met Combs, and a series of “terrifying sexual encounters” with Combs and those around him began that lasted for years.

Combs and his attorneys denied nearly all of the lawsuits’ allegations.

While authorities did not publicly say that the lawsuits set off the criminal investigation, Dyer said when the warrants were served that the case was based on “meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.”

The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Cassie and Lampros did.

As the founder of Bad Boy Records, Combs became one of the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the past three decades Along with the Notorious B.I.G. he worked with a slew of top-tier artists including Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil Kim, Faith Evans and 112.

Combs’ roles in his businesses beyond music — including lucrative private-label spirits, a media company and the Sean John Fashion line — took major hits when the allegations arose.

The consequences were even greater when the leaked beating video emerged. Howard University cut ties with him, and he returned his key to the city of New York at the request of the mayor.

Combs has faced various arrests before, and decades ago he was at the center of one of the biggest hip-hop industry trials of its era.

That trial stemmed from a Manhattan nightclub shooting that injured three people in 1999. His then-girlfriend, singer and actor Jennifer Lopez, was also there when the shots rang out.

Combs ultimately was acquitted of charges that he took an illegal gun into the club and tried to bribe his driver to take the fall for the weapon. His then-protégé, Shyne, was convicted of assault and other charges in the shooting and served about eight years in prison. Now going by Moses Barrow, he’s a member of the House of Representatives in his native Belize.

Also in 1999, Combs was arrested on a charge of beating up a record executive in New York. Combs pleaded guilty to harassment, which is a violation, and was sentenced to an anger management class.

Dalton reported from Los Angeles.

FILE - Sean "Diddy" Combs arrives at the LA Premiere of "The Four: Battle For Stardom" at the CBS Radford Studio Center on May 30, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)