{"id":93378,"date":"2011-09-29T13:19:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T13:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=6362"},"modified":"2011-09-29T13:19:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T13:19:22","slug":"clegg-slams-belarus-dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93378","title":{"rendered":"Clegg slams Belarus dictator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will take to the airwaves in Belarus this afternoon, the home of\u00a0<a title=\"Index on Censorship - Belarus Soviet Mercenaries\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2011\/09\/lukashenko%E2%80%99s-soviet-mercenaries\/\" target=\"_blank\">Europe\u2019s last dictatorship<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In an address to the people of Belarus, Clegg will vow \u00a0to stand up to the tyranny on our doorstep. In an article for the Independent today, he commented:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBelarus is trapped in the past: Europe\u2019s shameful secret, right on our doorstep. So I\u2019m determined we speak out and up the pressure on the regime. When popular uprisings exploded across North Africa and the Middle East, the UK took a stand and took it quickly. We will show the same leadership for Belarus.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He described Belarus:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0\u201cImagine a country where\u00a0<a title=\"Index on Censorship - Belarus activist beaten by police before being jailed\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2011\/09\/belarus-activist-beaten-by-police-before-being-jailed\/\" target=\"_blank\">torture and intimidation<\/a>\u00a0are reportedly common place. Where peaceful protesters are locked up \u00a0&#8211;\u2013 sent to maximum security\u00a0<a title=\"Index on Censorship - Belarus protesters sentenced to three years labour in penal colony\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2011\/05\/belarus-protesters-sentenced-to-three-years-labour-in-penal-colony\/\" target=\"_blank\">prison colonies<\/a>&#8212;\u00a0and free-thinking\u00a0<a title=\"Index on Censorship - Belarus protesters arrested, journalists targeted in tear gas attacks\" href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2011\/07\/belarus-protesters-arrested-journalists-targeted-in-teargas-attacks\/\" target=\"_blank\">journalists are harassed<\/a>. Where a president can rig election-after-election, despite running the economy into the ground. Where most people are too scared to speak out and the death penalty remains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>After his speech in Warsaw, in which he is expected to praise the work of the Free Belarus Now campaign (supported by Index on Censorship) the Liberal Democrat leader will take part in an interview with <a href=\"http:\/\/euroradio.fm\/\">European Radio for Belarus<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Alice Purkiss:<\/strong> Clegg slams Belarus dictator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7379,383,2955],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}