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Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Covering an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) and with a population of 9.2 million, Belarus is the 13th-largest and the 20th-most populous country in Europe. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
The Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus are the military forces of Belarus. It consists of the Ground Forces and the Air Force and Air Defence Forces, all under the command of the Ministry of Defence. As a landlocked country, Belarus has no navy, however the Belarusian military does have control over some small Soviet inherited naval vessels in its rivers and lakes.
The Byelorussian SSR was one of only two Soviet republics to be separate members of the United Nations. Both republics and the Soviet Union joined the UN when the organization was founded in 1945.
Minsk is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region and Minsk District. As of 2023, it has a population of two million, making Minsk the 11th-most populous city in Europe. Minsk is one of the administrative capitals of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
The politics of Belarus takes place in a framework of a presidential republic with a bicameral parliament. The President of Belarus is the head of state. Executive power is nominally exercised by the government, at its top sits a ceremonial prime minister, appointed directly by the President. Legislative power is de jure vested in the bicameral parliament, the National Assembly, however the president may enact decrees that are executed the same way as laws, for undisputed time.
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko is a Belarusian politician who has been the president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994. This makes him the longest-serving European president.
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The Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions was a confederation and center of trade unions in Belarus. It had 15,000 members in 4 affiliated unions and its headquarters were located in Minsk.
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The government of Belarus is criticized for its human rights violations and persecution of non-governmental organisations, independent journalists, national minorities, and opposition politicians. In a testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice labeled Belarus as one of the world's six "outposts of tyranny". In response, the Belarusian government called the assessment "quite far from reality". During 2020 Belarusian presidential election and protests, the number of political prisoners recognized by Viasna Human Rights Centre rose dramatically to 1062 as of 16 February 2022. Several people died after the use of unlawful and abusive force by law enforcement officials during 2020 protests. According to Amnesty International, the authorities didn't investigate violations during protests but instead harassed those who challenged their version of events. In July 2021, the authorities launched a campaign against the remaining non-governmental organizations, liquidating at least 270 of them by October, including all previously registered human rights organizations in the country.
Tut.By was an independent news, media and service internet portal, one of the five most popular websites in Belarus in the Russian language, and the most popular news web portal in the country. After its owning company was closed down by the Minsk Economic Court in June 2022, its successor Zerkalo.io remains online as of September 2022.
Presidential elections were held in Belarus on Sunday, 9 August 2020. Early voting began on 4 August and ran until 8 August.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Belarus was a part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have spread to Belarus, when the first case of COVID-19 in the country was registered in Minsk on 28 February 2020. As of 29 January 2023, a total of 19,047,714 vaccine doses have been administered.
The 2020–2021 Belarusian protests were a series of mass political demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko. The largest anti-government protests in the history of Belarus, the demonstrations began in the lead-up to and during the 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought his sixth term in office. In response to the demonstrations, a number of relatively small pro-government rallies were held.
The Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power is a non-governmental body created by presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to facilitate a democratic transfer of power in Belarus. The council, founded during the 2020 Belarusian protests in response to the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election, has 64 core members with a 7-member leadership presidium.
Trade unions in Belarus are legally independent under International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions since 1956. In the early twenty-first century, Belarusian trade unions were subject to harassment and intimidation from government authorities. New trade unions and local unions were created with help from the ProfSoyuz Online working group of the Coordination Council during the 2020 Belarusian protests starting in mid-September 2020.
A constitutional referendum was held in Belarus on 27 February 2022. The referendum was ordered by President Alexander Lukashenko in January 2022. According to political analysts, changes to the Belarusian constitution were intended to solidify the power of Lukashenko's regime after the mass protests in 2020 and 2021, which challenged his rule and was brutally suppressed by police. More than 35,000 people were arrested, 1,070 of whom are acknowledged political prisoners. The changes to Constitution allow Lukashenko to remain in office until 2035 and empower the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, an extra-parliamentary body dominated by government supporters. The changes also renounced Belarus's nuclear-free zone status, allowing Belarus to host nuclear weapons for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union; the lead-up to the referendum occurred as Russia amassed its troops in both Russia and Belarus in the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the election itself was held several days after Russia began its military offensive into Ukraine.
Belarus, a close ally of Russia, has supported its eastern neighbour in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before the start of the offensive, Belarus allowed the Russian Armed Forces to perform weeks-long military drills on its territory; however, the Russian troops did not exit the country after they were supposed to finish. Belarus allowed Russia to stage part of the invasion from its territory, giving Russia the shortest possible land route to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. However, these forces withdrew within two months, thus ceasing land-based military operations originating from Belarus and resulting in the recapture of the Ukrainian side of the border region by Ukraine. Despite this, the situation along the border remains tense, with Ukraine closing the border checkpoints leading into Belarus, bar special cases.
The Association of Security Forces of Belarus, also known as BYPOL, is a Belarusian organization that was created by former employees of law enforcement agencies to counter the Belarusian authorities. The association has channels on YouTube and Telegram, on which it publishes various videos related to the security forces, and also doxes law enforcement officers.
References
- ↑ "Belarus". International Centre for Trade Union Rights . 2018. Archived from the original on 2020-10-22. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
- ↑ "В Беларуси работает платформа "Профсоюз онлайн". Через нее можно создать независимый профсоюз" [The platform 'Trade Union Online' is active in Belarus. You can create an independent trade union using it.]. Marketing.by (in Russian). 2020-10-19. Archived from the original on 2020-10-22. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
- ↑ "В Белоруссии запретили независимые профсоюзы". Interfax (in Russian). July 19, 2022. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
Other
- ICTUR; et al., eds. (2005). Trade Unions of the World (6th ed.). London, UK: John Harper Publishing. ISBN 0-9543811-5-7.
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