Belarus authorities have arrested dozens in the wake of demonstrations protesting a law against “social parasites,” RFE/RL reports. The 2015 law took effect earlier this year, sparking protests that have broadened into… Read more »
A rare and large-scale protest took place in Belarus on Saturday, when hundreds took to the streets to protest a tax — the so-called “tax on parasites” — against the under-employed,… Read more »
Where the Soviet system was rigid, today’s autocrats are flexible and pragmatic, writes Freedom House analyst Arch Puddington: Where the older generation of communists were bureaucratic and slothful, today’s dictators… Read more »
A tax on “social parasites” is stirring up public angst in Belarus, according to reports. A classic revolutionary situation may be unfolding in Europe’s last dictatorship, notes analyst Leon Aron:… Read more »
Street protests against a tax on adults who are not in full-time work spread from Belarus’s capital Minsk to other towns on Sunday, Reuters reported: Around 2,000 people took to… Read more »
The National Endowment for Democracy will host legendary Belarusian rock musician and activist Lavon Volski in conversation with Hungarian Ambassador András Simonyi on the role of independent art and culture… Read more »
Interested in strengthening local independent media in Belarus, aka ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’? The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for… Read more »
In the early hours of Wednesday, July 20, a car bomb in Kyiv took the life of a long-time NED friend, Pavel Sheremet. A journalist with the Kyiv-based Radio Vesti… Read more »
Belarus is often described as “Europe’s Last Dictatorship”; it has, after all, been led by Aleksandr Lukashenka’s iron fist since 1994. In his book My Story: Belarusian Amerikanka or Elections… Read more »
Despite the slow pace of market reforms, the Belarusian economy recorded quite impressive growth until recently, notes Marek Dabrowski, a Non-Resident Scholar at Bruegel, the Brussels-based think-tank. However the Belarus… Read more »