Belarusian authorities maintain their pressure against independent media and activists. Last week was marked by new measures against political prisoners Syarhey Kavalenka and Milakay Autukhovich as well as Vitsebsky Kurier and Arche independent outlets. Hunger-striking opposition activist Syarhey Kavalenka being force-fed in Vitsyebsk jail. On January 16, the administration of a detention center in Vitsyebsk began force-feeding Syarhey Kavalenka to abort the opposition activist's month-long hunger strike. In May 2010, Kavalenka was given a three-year suspended prison sentence after creating a scandal by putting a white-red-white flag on top of Vitsyebsk's tallest Christmas tree. On December 19, Kavalenka was arrested at home on a charge of violating probation rules four times. He has been on hunger strike since then.

Last week, leading Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva announced that in Minsk there will be signposts put up in English and in Russian. This reveals several facts about contemporary Minsk. There are no signposts in English. Putting them up is so extraordinary that they publish an article about it. You Better Read Cyrillic If you have traveled around Minsk without speaking Russian and reading Cyrillic, you will understand why. Apart from one road sign in the Western suburb of Minsk announcing the way to “Inturist”, there are no street names or metro stations in Latin script. Only in the newly renovated park around Komsomolskae ozero will you find signs indicating the way to "Youth Island" and other promising places in English.

Last autumn when Belarusian rock band IQ48 approached a regional TV channel, its editors told the musicians that their song contained unacceptable political hints. The editors in western Belarusian city of Maladzechna interpreted the original Belarusian words of the song “And let Mickey Mouse hang in the fridge” as a hint to the Belarus president who is a known as an avid hockey player and promoter of dozens of ice hockey palaces throughout the country.  The careful editors also understood “and year to year we become ever more slim like birch trees” as a hint that there was not enough food in the country, so the Belarusians were getting thin. That was enough for ideological supervisors to ban the song, silencing the band as since some years all public concerts and broadcasting in Belarus are controlled by the state. Some could dismiss the Maladzechna incident as stupidity of provincial censors but there further examples show that the regime's paranoia is increasing. 

Last week Gunnar Wiegand from the European Commission announced that the EU was going to extend sanctions against Belarus. 135 more people may be added to the existing list of 208 Belarusian officials who are prohibited to visit the EU. Diplomatic sources also suggest that one or several Belarusian enterprises may be added to the ban list. Europe wants to show that it cares about the situation in Belarus. Some even hope that Belarusians will soon revolt. But this 'tough love' approach is counterproductive. Despite the worst economic crisis in Belarus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of those who are willing to protest  diminishes. Ironically, the highest number of protesters in this century was in December 2010 when Belarusians were much richer than they are today and Europe pursued the policy of engagement. 

Belarusian authorities have not changed their ways in 2012. The former presidential candidate Mikola Statkevich will be transferred to a detention facility with harsher conditions, the KGB is trying to recruit new informants and more democratic activists are under pressure. Statkevich to be moved to cell-type prison. On January 12, in a trial that took place in Correctional Institution #17 in Shklow, Mahilyow region. The convicted former presidential candidate Mikalay Statkevich was found guilty of violating prison rules and must be moved from the facility to a higher-security prison for three years. The charge was brought against Mr. Statkevich because of his missing number tag and failure to mention handkerchiefs among his personal items. In May 2011, a district judge in Minsk sentenced Mr. Statkevich to six years in a medium-security prison, finding him guilty of organizing "mass disorder" in connection with the December 19, 2010 post-election protest. Opposition youths say that KGB attempted to recruit them as informants. Five members of an opposition youth group called Malady Front (Young Front) revealed to reporters on January 9 that officers of the Committee for State Security (KGB) had attempted to recruit them as informants. The young men were contacted by KGB officers while they were serving jail sentences in the detention center on Akrestsina Street following their arrest in Minsk on December 19, 2011.

Since the beginning of the new year the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus has unexpectedly appeared in the media on two occasions. Unlike in Western countries in present-day Belarus you do not hear much about trade unions. The Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, also dubbed the ‘official’ trade union, has about 4 million members and thousands of regional, local and organization-based unions, but its role in public life is close to non-existant. The first time the official trade union hit the headlines was on 3 January when more than 200 workers of the Republican Unitary Industrial Enterprise ‘Granit’ (located in Brest Oblast) decided to leave the ‘official’ trade union and to organize an independent alternative. Then on 9 January the Federation of Trade Unions unexpectedly joined (though, in a very cautious way) the critics of the government’s decision to triple the Base Rate. The Base Rate is an important  rate to which certain other rates and payments are tied (for example, fines, fees and rates for property rent).

At the beginning of the new year, Belarus made headlines in the Western press once again. The reporting on the new internet law showed that Belarus is a white stain on the European map for most people. This week the Toronto Star published an article called "Belarus: The North Korea of Europe". It’s those often misleading descriptions that most Westerners have in mind when going to Belarus for the first time. Based on Western media reports, it is impossible to imagine what Belarus is actually like and how people live here. For this reason, Belarus Digest launches a new series of articles, written by a German living in Belarus. In several articles, we will try to paint a more realistic picture of life in “Europe’s last dictatorship” and describe events and everyday life from the perspective of a Western expat. So let's begin the journey. 

Many Belarusians who decided to greet the New Year watching Belsat TV channel were disappointed. In the last minutes of 2011, instead of entertainment or good wishes, Belsat exposed them to a cold shower of videos of the April Minsk terrorist attack, political prisoners and graphic images of police cracking down on post-election protests. This was not just an editorial mistake, but a typical weakness of an underfunded broadcasting project. Belarusian exile media suffers from technical and professional weaknesses and lacks sufficient funding. Although recently Western funding has somewhat increased, the bulk of financial burden of broadcasting to Belarus is borne by the United States and Poland. Another Belarusian neighbor, Lithuania, apparently will not risk worsening relations with Lukashenka. For instance, the Baltic Waves radio station project broadcasting to Belarus from Lithuania between 1999-2001 with the help from the United States was short-lived.

Alexander Rumak from the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection declared that the Belarusian labour market would not deteriorate this year. According to official figures, the unemployment rate in Belarus is merely 0.6% of the economically active population. The reality, however, is different from the rosy picture the Government of Belarus is trying to paint.  Thousands of young Belarusians migrate to Russia to escape unemployment and low wages. While Russia is waiting for Belarusian migrants who benefit its economy with open hands, the European Union keeps its doors shut, maintaining the highest visa fees in the region for Belarusian citizens. To balance Russia's influence, the European Union should become more open and offer more education and work experience opportunities for the Belarusian youth if it wants to see Belarus democratic and pro-European in the future. 

If one listens to the Belarusian and Russian leadership, a war with the West is imminent. This weekend, the Belarusian internet was filled with stories about Moscow being ready to defend Belarus from Warsaw's claims to the Grodno and Minsk regions in Poland. In November 2011, Head of the Russian General Staff General Nikolai Makarov presented an alarmist map that showed Russia and Belarus surrounded by hostile nations plotting to occupy them. Since the 1990s the Kremlin has used Belarus as an ally who is ready to spout radical statements about NATO – something Russia, as a more internationally respected state, cannot do to the same extent. In return, Russia arms Belarus with its weapons at a discount. Putin's vision of the Eurasian Union, one step closer after the countries formed a common economic space on January 1 2012, is intended to take military cooperation to a new level. 

Last Friday the Library of Congress website published an article called 'Belarus: Browsing Foreign Websites a Misdemeanor'. The story authored by Peter Roudik raised a huge wave of attention first in the blogosphere and then in the mainstream media. The titles were truly sensational. 'Belarus Breaks the Internet, Raises the Digital Iron Curtain' wrote Forbes yesterday. 'Belarus Makes it a Crime to Visit Foreign Websites' was another title. Even the BBC repeated the story. According to these media outlets Belarusians will soon be prohibited from visiting foreign websites and will face fines if they fail to obey. They also wrote about an introduction of new fines for visiting websites blacklisted by the government. Radio Free Europe, also published an article Belarus Restricts Use of Foreign Web Sites but then promptly removed it. They probably did so for a good reason.

In 2009-2010 the Russian government refused several times to transfer loans to Belarus when it failed to fulfill certain conditions. Then Putin insisted on the sales of Belarusian industrial enterprises to Russian companies. The Minister of Finance of Russia Aleksei Kudrin urged the Belarusian party to provide guarantees for loan repayment in the form of a program of selling the Belarusian enterprises to the Russian companies. Among other comments, he stated that Belarus was on the edge of bankruptcy. The situation has totally changed in late 2011. Russia is going to provide billions of dollars in oil and gas subsidies. It has already allocated 10 billion USD of funds in the form of loans for nuclear power plant construction in Belarus. Moreover, it has paid 2.5 million USD for the second half of ‘Beltransgas’ shares.

In December most Belarusian commentators focused on significant events of the 2011 and forecasts for the year 2012 - their outlook was rather pessimistic. The Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies published results of its recent polls which show that over 80% of Belarusians think that the economy of the country is in crisis, and over 55% believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction. However, the number of those who consider themselves in opposition to the current government is slightly more than 20%.  Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies: December 2011 National Poll. Alexander Lukashenka’s electoral rating in comparison with September 2011 (20.4%) slightly increased to 24.9%, and so did the level of public trust in the president –up from 24.5% in September to 31.2% in December. However, if people knew of an alternative candidate who could compete with Lukashenka for elections, 44.6% of people would vote for such a candidate, while of 21.7% would cast their ballot for Lukashenka. 

Belarus Digest compiled a list of most read articles in 2011 and wishes you a Happy New Year!  1. Cheap Booze For The People Of Belarus. As the economic crisis deepens prices on nearly all products rise sharply in Belarus with one remarkable exception - alcohol.  These days a bottle of vodka in Belarusian restaurants often costs less than a packet of orange juice - US$3.  In a supermarket half a liter of a cheap alcoholic drink with around 30% alcohol content costs around US$0.65. Yesterday the government increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco, but the state policy of providing affordable alcohol and tobacco remains unchanged. 2. The Consequences Of The April 11 Minsk Bombing. The explosion in Minsk underground is the most tragic terrorist act, which Belarus has seen since the end of the Second World War. The bomb exploded at the busiest station of Minsk subway on Monday evening. Over two hundred people injured and eleven reported dead as a result of the rush hour bombing in the capital of Belarus. It was clearly a terrorist act. Who is behind it is a more difficult question. Belarus is not waging any wars, has a homogeneous population and no unsettled territorial disputes.