More than 400 political prisoners and 30,000 people arrested: these are the results of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s brutal response to the protests that started in Belarus last year.
Today, you can get fined for hanging up socks, umbrellas or linen if they carry the red and white national colours used by the Belaursian opposition. Sweets wrapped in red-white-red packaging have even been removed from shops.
At the end of last year, it seemed as if the Belarusian authorities had successfully suppressed the protests. By winter, the country’s nascent democratic movement no longer had the strength to continue the peaceful demonstrations that had taken place between August and October. Instead, international politics became the main arena of contest.
