Europe’s Last Dictatorship
Late last month Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist in Belarus, was indicted on a charge of libel against the country’s president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, after publishing a series of articles that questioned the execution of two men convicted of bombing a Minsk subway station.
This latest news may seem a setback from April, when the European Union pressured Mr. Lukashenko into freeing a prominent dissident, Andrei Sannikov. And yet anyone who took hope from Mr. Sannikov’s release was deluded: both cases, and dozens of others, are all part of the system by which Mr. Lukashenko maintains his 17-year-old regime.
Belarus remains Europe’s last dictatorship, as the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it in 2006.… Seguir leyendo »