BRUSSELS, Belgium - The EU and US slammed Belarus Thursday for a series of political raids this week, as rights groups said more than 150 people were detained or interrogated by the KGB security service in a single day.
Belarus, ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, has orchestrated a brutal four-year crackdown since huge protests rocked the reclusive country in 2020.
Leading rights group Viasna said the regime targeted the families of political prisoners as well as recently freed inmates in nationwide arrests on January 23.
"The European Union condemns in the strongest possible terms the recent wave of repression against former political prisoners remaining in Belarus, as well as relatives of political prisoners," said the bloc's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
Washington similarly condemned the "regime's broader ongoing attacks on human rights and attempts to thwart the democratic aspirations of the people of Belarus".
"We will continue to hold the regime accountable, through sanctions and other means, for its harsh internal repression as well as for its ongoing support for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The raids came ahead of a February parliamentary election -- the first national ballot since 2020, when protests erupted following a presidential vote that the opposition and the West said Lukashenko stole.
The February 25 ballot will have no real opposition.
Brussels said Lukashenko's regime was continuing "its deplorable tactics of intimidation and repression against its critics and potential political opponents ahead of the 'elections' in February".
Viasna said it had information on "at least 160 people" who had their homes searched, or were arrested or interrogated.
"Not everyone was freed (after the interrogations), rights activists are clarifying the fate of the detained," it said.
It said KGB employees conducted the raids "throughout the whole of Belarus".
The searches affected "relatives and close ones of political prisoners as well as former political prisoners who were recently freed and stayed in Belarus."
According to Viasna, security forces detained 70 people in the city of Brest near the Polish border, with reports suggesting they were all women.
- 'Revenge' -
Viasna -- founded by jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski -- says there are currently 1,419 political prisoners in Belarus.
The group said the KGB was looking for foreign bank accounts and the searches could have been linked to people receiving aid from an exiled organisation helping families of prisoners.
Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya thanked the EU for its "strong solidarity and support for the people of Belarus", calling on the world to "react to this latest wave of intimidation."
She called the raids "revenge on those who love our country".
Marina Adamovich, the wife of opposition politician Mikola Statkevich serving 14 years in prison, was given 15 days in jail, she said.
Other people detained, activists said, included a 76-year-old veteran rights campaigner Boris Khamayda and a singer who came back from neighbouring Poland when his visa expired.
Tens of thousands fled Belarus, mainly to neighbouring Poland and Lithuania, after the 2020 protests were suppressed.
The KGB raids came ahead of a planned meeting between Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Isolated for years, Belarus has been even more cut off from the EU since Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use his territory to invade Ukraine.
Minsk has been subjected to repeated rounds of EU sanctions over the crackdown on the opposition and for its role as a staging post in Russia's war on Ukraine.