MALADZYECHNA, Belarus (AP) — The half-million Belarusians who can’t find work in their country’s stumbling Soviet-style economy face an array of hard choices: register with the state employment exchange, which will force them to “public work” for a pittance; pay $250 for failure to register; or risk being jailed for taking part in a rising wave of protests against the labor law.
Over the past two months, such protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands of people — an unusually widespread and persistent show of opposition in an authoritarian country where dissent is generally suppressed.
Lukashenko …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
