After the wave of violence that followed the presidential election of December 2010, the human rights situation deteriorated rapidly. The human rights community was branded as politically motivated, accused of being the conduit of western funding to domestic ‘radical opposition’, and subjected to repression on an unprecedented scale: arrests, searches at home and in the office, confiscation of electronic devices and documents, police surveillance and an intense smear campaign on state-owned media became a daily occurrence. Human rights lawyers were disbarred because they represented detained opposition activists, denounced their conditions of detention and the violation of fair trial guarantees. Demonstrators were arrested en masse. Widespread impunity for law enforcement officers contributed to an increase in human rights violations including the use of torture in detention against political opponents and human rights defenders. Faced with the systematic denial of permission to hold public meetings and police repression of unauthorised protests, civil society engaged in so-called ‘silent demonstrations’, spontaneous gatherings often organised through social networking sites. These protests were also eventually met with violence and arrests. In the absence of any applicable criminal offence, participants were sentenced for the administrative offence of hooliganism. In November, the Law on Public Gatherings was amended so as to permit the use of criminal charges against silent demonstrations. The amended law also required organisers to disclose financial sources and prohibited any promotional activity, including through social networking sites, until official permission is granted. Further legislative amendments made it illegal for NGOs to hold funds abroad and established criminal liability for receiving foreign grants or donations ‘in violation of the Belarusian legislation’. These changes were adopted in connection with the case of Ales Bialiatski, chairman of the Human Rights Centre Viasna. He was arrested in August and accused of tax evasion on account of holding personal bank accounts in Poland and Lithuania, which in fact served to fund Viasna’s work. He was sentenced in November to four and a half years and the confiscation of all his properties.