Countries
Belarus

The Republic of Belarus is located in  Eastern Europe. The President, elected in 2006 for the third term (the first election was held in 1994) is Aleksandr Lukašenko.

Belarus, after being part of the USSR, became an independent state in 1990. It is member of the Russian Federation, a confederation that includes nine former countries of the Soviet Union.

The country came under the international spotlight in 1986, when the accident in the atomic power station of Černobyl' occurred.

On July 10, 1994 Aleksandr Lukašenko was elected. The new president refused to follow the indications of the International Monetary Fund, differing the Belarus ecomomy from that of nearly all the former Soviet republics. Lukašenko was re-elected in 2001 (the OSCE-Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe described this victory as not being in accordance with  international human rights standards) and in 2006, after a referendum in 2004 to eliminate the two term limit to the president’s mandate was approved. In the same year the OSCE observers  deemed the elections not legitimate due to the absence of democracy and freedom of vote.

Belarus struggles greatly with human rights issues and today has a high number of political prisoners, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and religion, as well as an unfair economic system that greatly restricts workers' rights.