Just over a year ago, Belarus, known as the last dictatorship in Europe, saw some of the biggest protests in its history. They followed yet another presidential election where Alexander Lukashenko was the apparent victor, his sixth straight win in 26 years.
But this time the opposition was led by three, inspiring women, who not just challenged the president’s authority more than ever before but made many people in Belarus feel change was possible.
Today, our correspondent Paraic O’Brien looks at the past year in Belarus, what the effect of the clampdown by Lukashenko has done to the opposition movement, and whether recent events, from the sentencing of one of the key leaders to the infamous Ryanair arrest, show that real change is still a long way off in Minsk.
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