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Belarus: Europe's last dictatorship

submitted by MINK

1 decade 7 years 3 months 3 weeks ago

Politics

A BBC report on Belarus, giving you an almost completely fantasised view of european politics but based in truth.

Belarus is indeed authoritarian and bizarrely clinging to soviet memories, the people are either struggling or very rich, freedom of speech is pretty much nonexistent, students are not encouraged to actually do anything, and if you don't know the right people then you better keep your mouth shut.

On the other hand, university in lithuania is very poorly funded, students are not always encouraged to criticise (mostly by oldskool exsoviet lecturers), they don't have books, and students live in crumbling dorms with fungus on the walls.

Unlike this "journalist" (apparently) I have been to Belarus a few times, filmed openly in the street without any trouble, they have unrestricted internet access, and the parties are really good (if you are rich). The only time we were at risk of being arrested was for making noise all night in a sleeper car, and quite right too.

If the BBC was a news organisation they might have mentioned some of this stuff, but basically there's a big incentive for western businesses to get in there and make money, so they call Belarus a dictatorship, show pictures of riot police, and that's that.

of course, there's no riot police or rigged elections in the West, are there?