Since the oil-price slump, the government has stepped up repression.
Belarus has moved further from the EU after its dictatorial president, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, stepped up repression following December's stolen election.Few in the EU any longer see membership for any of these countries as a strategic goal.
The mass sentencing, by a judge who on Tuesday opened proceedings against 682 people including Mohammed Badie, the spiritual guide of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, appeared to have been sparked the judge's anger and reflect agreement among many in the judiciary with the government's stepped up repression in the last eight months.
If Mr Maduro steps up repression, the regime will become an outright dictatorship for the first time.
His answer to repeated pleadings from U.S. officials for gestures on human rights has been to step up repression of the opposition.
If the bourgeoisie does start to protest, the party will be faced with an old dilemma: liberalise or step up repression.
Bombs placed on a road near the town injured around a dozen people, including children, and blinded a soldier sent to defuse them.For his part, to hold the election at all, the king had to step up repression.
"I don't want to talk about types like Barroso and other morons and arseholes and the like".As Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a journal, notes, by stepping up repression Mr Lukashenka has destroyed his longstanding game of playing Russia off against the West.
According to Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the regional deputy director of Amnesty International, "The authorities are trying to use the Grand Prix as a platform to show progress, with claims that the human rights situation has improved, whilst stepping up repression in order to ensure nothing disturbs their public image".
"It is not very representative of my work .To Belarusians opposed to Mr Lukashenka's regime, that date has become shorthand for the events of the night of December 19th 2010, when the authorities crushed protests against a fraudulent presidential election and a period of relative openness in Belarus came to an abrupt end.The regime has stepped up its repression since then.
While addressing the issues of economic and social disparities and talking about "democratic" reforms, in reality, they have stepped up political repression by arresting defense lawyers, freelance intellectuals, newspaper editors, journalists and cyber-dissidents who have challenged the party's authority and attempted to assert their political rights.
