On November 20, Anastasia Kryvasheyeva was attending class at Minsk State Linguistic University when she began receiving Telegram messages telling her that the KGB were arresting her friends. Twenty-year-old Kryvasheyeva stared at her phone as it was deluged with messages from friends who had officers from the State Security Committee — abbreviated to KGB in English — banging down their doors.

Panicking, Kryvasheyeva left school, turning off her phone for fear that the GPS might be tracked. Kryvasheyeva knew that if the KGB was looking for student activists, she would likely be on their list.

Kryvasheyeva is one of the many Belarusian students facing the consequences of protests against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime — including police brutality, criminal charges, expulsion from university, and imprisonment. Students made up a significant portion of the hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who protested what many view as a stolen election last August. There are currently eleven students and one professor standing trial in Minsk for “conspiracy, preparation, and organization of and participation in activities that violate social order” for their participation in the protests. If convicted, they could be imprisoned for up to three years. In addition, Amnesty International reports that 466 students have been detained, and at least 153 arbitrarily expelled from their universities; 42 are suspects in criminal cases, and many have fled the country for fear of arrest.