News stories by Robert Stefanicki, page 2

'I had to fight to be treated like a human, not animal,' dissident Nikolai Avtukhovich wrote from prison. Last month Avtukhovich, Belarusian political activist and entrepreneur, convicted to five years in the penal colony for illegal storage of five cartridges for a hunting rifle, cut his veins.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is releasing political prisoners in hope of getting loans from the IMF. After the unexpected pardons over recent weeks, only about a dozen political prisoners remain in Belarusian jails. Among them are Lukashenko’s rivals in the December 2010 presidential elections, serving up to six years of hard labour.

'What Hitler started, we will finish…go to the gas chamber, Jews, go to the oven.' When Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski read this and similar comments in discussion forums, he decided to go to court.

President Alexander Lukashenko has locked most of his rivals in jail, but the Belarus opposition continues to work diligently to isolate the dictator.

Thuan has had little luck. In his youth he joined the 'boat people' fleeing Vietnam to Indonesia. Deported back after six years, carrying the stigma of an anti-communist, he could not find a job.

In the summer presidential campaign, fake posters of two leading candidates showed up on the streets of Polish cities. 'United we stand, divided we fall', the slogan of now president Bronislaw Komorowski, became 'United we stand, modified we fall'. Equally bombastic 'Poland is most important' by opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski turned into 'Poland without GMO is most important'.