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Following a disputed 2020 election, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets with calls for democracy and the resignation of strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka. A podcast series by RFE/RL's Belarus Service documents how the state has locked the country in a prison of fear ever since.
Following massive pro-democracy protests in Belarus in 2020, the government has cracked down – targeting independent media, among others. Some of the many journalists who have fled their profession, or the country entirely, recounted how their lives have been altered forever.
A 23-year-old blogger was given a 10-month labor sentence this month for a social-media video that Russian authorities say amounted to “rehabilitating Nazism.” Experts say the law is being used to impose public conformity with the government’s jingoistic version of World War II history.
Longtime dissident Aleksandr Skobov is being held in St. Petersburg on a charge of "justifying terrorism." The 66-year-old, who spent years in psychiatric hospitals in Soviet times, makes no apologies for his outspoken opposition to Vladimir Putin. And he has no intention of backing down now.
A purported Kremlin election-strategy document leaked last month seems to show in detail how the authorities in Russia intend to produce 85 percent support for President Vladimir Putin in the March 15-17 vote.