Although a dialogue between Belarus and the EU has started the human rights situation in Europe's last dicatatorship didn't improve.

Alexander Lukashenka was elected president of the Republic of Belarus in 1994 shortly after the state regained independence in the course of the Sowjet Unions’s breakup in 1991.

He changed the constitution several times by using controversial referendums and achieved the extension of his term in office in 1996 for another two years meanwhile the parliament was suspended. By means of another manipulated poll he archieved unlimited re-election as president in 2004.  Not a single member of the opposition belonged to the parliament in 2004 and 2008. Since 1996 no election or voting in Belarus was approved as fair and free by neither the OSZE nor the European Union.

Lukashenka admitted repeatedly that the results of the 2006 presidential election had been forged, insisting that this happened to his very own disadvantage.  If this were holding true he could have gained even more than the officially announced 83 % of all votes.

Despite a beginning dialogue between Belarus and the European Union, an improvement of the human rights situation in Europe’s last dictatorship cannot be observed. Nevertheless, Belarus has been invited to the EU Eastern Partnership in 2009.

To demonstrate peacefully in Belarus means to be in high danger of being battered and detained by the police. Many organizations and parties are banned or their registration is denied. Religious communities are not allowed to exercise their beliefs freely. Young members of the opposition are expelled from university and forced into the army. The independent press is hampered and leads a shadowy existence while the mass media is controlled and censored by the government. Belarus ranks 188^th among 195 countries in  Freedom House’s 2009 “Freedom of the Press” ranking . Belarus belongs to the not free countries where non or hardly any free media can be found.

Belarus is the last country in Europe that still practices death penalty. According to released detainees the situation in overcrowded prisons is very questionable and degrading. Neither the UN nor the Red Cross is allowed to inspect the conditions of imprisonment in Belarus.