Republic of Belarus: Turning Back the Clock

President Aleksandr Lukashenka continues to steer Belarus back toward Soviet-era repression by leading a government that is engaged in violations of a broad spectrum of basic civil and political rights. His four years in office have witnessed the reversal of modest improvements in respect for human rights that followed the perestroika period and the break-up of the Soviet Union. In the past year alone, the government closed the only remaining independent daily newspaper in the country, was implicated in at least four assaults or threats on government critics, and detained scores of demonstrators, many of them minors. Together with restrictions on civic freedoms that have now been codified into law, these developments indicate that President Lukashenka is truly turning back the clock on rights.

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