Free Marfa Rabkova now
A 2025 United Nations assessment concluded that Belarus continues to carry out widespread, systematic human-rights violations - in some cases amounting to crimes against humanity - to preserve the rule of President Alyaksandr Lukashenko. The report describes routine torture, degrading treatment, denial of medical care, and coercive detention practices used to instil fear and silence dissent, including among scholars and students (OHCHR 2025).
Marfa Rabkova is a Belarusian student and human-rights defender with the Viasna Human Rights Centre who has been imprisoned since 17 September 2020, following a violent raid by maskedofficers from the Main Department for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption in Minsk. After a closed trial in 2022, she received 15 years in prison (later reduced on appeal to 14 years and 9 months). Her case exposes how authoritarian governments criminalise documentation, research, and student organising - activities that sit at the core of academic life (Human Rights Watch 2022; Scholars at Risk 2025).
Academic freedom functions as an ecosystem - built on the ability to collect data, evaluate evidence, debate ideas, and share results. In Belarus, that ecosystem is dominated by state control. Studies show that the government shapes university curricula, research priorities, and staffing decisions to align with official ideology. The Ministry of Education determines national standards and teaching requirements, leaving universities structurally vulnerable to political pressure.
International comparisons confirm that the situation for academic freedom in Belarus has worsened. Scholars at Risk Europe’s briefing shows Belarus’s Academic Freedom Index fell from 0.19 (2019) to 0.03 (2022), placing it in the bottom decile worldwide (SAR Europe 2023). Recent studies of student experiences before 2020 show that academic freedom in Belarus was already limited, with students having little independence or influence within universities. The current crackdown has only deepened these long-standing structural problems.
A further driver was the state’s designation of Viasna as an 'extremist' organisation in 2023. This move meant that anyone associated with the group, including researchers and volunteers, could face prosecution simply for sharing information (Associated Press 2023).
While studying international law, Marfa coordinated Viasna’s volunteer network - recruiting and training monitors to observe protests, document abuses, and support detainees’ families. Authorities escalated charges against her from 2020 onward, ultimately securing a conviction after a closed-door trial in 2022. On 28 February 2023, the Supreme Court reduced her sentence to 14 years and 9 months. She remains imprisoned as of September 2025, and international coalitions continue to call for her immediate and unconditional release.
The details of her case - documentation reframed as criminality, humanitarian coordination cast criminality, humanitarian coordination cast as ‘organising mass riots’ are consistent with a broader pattern against Viasna members (Human Rights Watch 2022; OMCT/FIDH 2024).
The UN’s 2025 reporting and major rights organisations describe overcrowding, denial of medical care, sleep deprivation, and psychological intimidation for detainees held on political charges. These practices are systematic, not incidental, and match accounts from Belarusian penal colonies and temporary detention facilities since 2020. Health deterioration and restricted contact with family reported in cases like Marfa's align with that pattern.
Australia’s ties with Belarus are limited and sanctions-focused due to the Lukashenko government’s internal repression and its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. On 28 January 2025, Australia co-signed a joint statement rejecting the election and calling for the release of 1,250+ political prisoners, reinforcing a coordinated, multilateral approach (DFAT 2025; ABC News 2025; Reuters 2025). For Australian universities, the implications are tangible. The erosion of academic freedom abroad weakens the global culture of truth-seeking and open inquiry that sustains our institutions.
Free Marfa Now is a Monash-based initiative to raise awareness about Belarus’s assault on academic freedom and to urge Marfa Rabkova’s immediate, unconditional release.
Learn the facts using verified sources: UN/OHCHR (2025); Amnesty International (2025).
Sign the Scholars at Risk appeal through our Monash Google Form - this is used to tally signatures which are then submitted in batches to SAR to track campus-generated support.
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and raise awareness.
Democracy is a daily practice kept alive by separation of powers, independent media, and academic freedom. Standing with Marfa Rabkova means defending the conditions of truth that allow universities like Monash to function at all. The question is not whether we should care about a case ‘far away’, but whether we care enough about our own academic values to defend them everywhere they are under attack.