Ales Mihalevic, Vice Chairman, Belarusian Popular Front, Belarus

Bio: Mr. Ales Mihalevic is one of Belarus' leading young democrats. As a NGO and political leader, he has been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in "Europe's last dictatorship" for more than a decade. Mr. Mihalevic was chairman of the Belarusian Students' Association (BSA), the country's only independent students' group, which was closed down by the Lukashenka regime. While attending a BSA event, Mr. Mihalevic was arrested and spent Christmas 2006 in jail. He was also the founder and chairman of the Youth Information Center, an NGO which promotes cross-border educational initiatives.

Mr. Mihalevic works with many European NGOs, including the People in Need Foundation in the Czech Republic. In 2003, he was elected deputy to the Puchavicy Regional Council, receiving the highest percentage of votes of any prodemocratic candidate in the local elections. He has also promoted local government reform by establishing and leading the Assembly of Pro-Democratic Deputies to Local Councils. Today, Mr. Mihalevic is a vice chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front, the country's oldest democratic political movement. He was a leading organizer and participant in the March 2006 demonstrations after yet another election in Belarus that was not free or fair.

Since 1997, Mr. Mihalevic has been detained numerous times and imprisoned twice for his NGO and political work. He was among the first graduates of the Belarusian Humanitarian Lyceum, Belarus' only independent high school, which was closed down in 2004. He holds an MA in Political Science and was a PhD candidate at the Institute of Philosophy and Law at the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, but was expelled because of his political work three months before defending his dissertation.

Remarks: It is my pleasure to represent Belarus, which is known today as "the last dictatorship in Europe." My country, with 10 million inhabitants, used to be the most privileged part of the former Soviet Union, in economic terms. After gaining independence, a majority of Belarusians were afraid of dramatic changes and elected Alexander Lukashenka, who promised to restore the Soviet Union, as President. Those elections, in 1994, were the last democratic elections in my country. From that time on, the situation has become increasingly worse, in terms of human rights and civic liberties. Like all of the independent electronic media, most NGOs in Belarus have been closed down. And we have more and more political prisoners.

Several popular opposition politicians, who could have been an alternative to President Lukashenka, have disappeared or died under strange circumstances. So the question from the Belarusian people to the democratic opposition has been, "Who, if not Lukashenka?" In response, the opposition came together before the last presidential elections in 2006 and nominated a single candidate-a professor of physics and an NGO leader-Alexander Milinkevich. In a short period of time, he became a real alternative and the symbol of a new, European Belarus. During the last local elections a month ago, Alexander Milinkevich campaigned on behalf of several hundred democratic candidates and traveled around Belarus, meeting with thousands of citizens at market places, factories, and schools. He was detained by the police and KGB many times, but continued to speak with people, even at police stations.

In spite of the fact that Milinkevich traveled to Moscow several times and tried to convince Russian officials that our democrats would be a better partner for Russia, the Kremlin is afraid of Milinkevich's pro-Western position. Russian officials still think rather in terms of "aggressive NATO expansion" rather than about democratic or economic reforms. Last year, when Putin realized that Lukashenka is not especially useful for Russia's interests, the Kremlin began playing political games with the Belarusian opposition. As a result, the opposition today is not as united as it was a year ago, before the presidential elections.

Recently, some more positive factors have appeared. More and more young people are becoming our supporters. They are struggling for freedom without demanding any conditions. The most recent criminal cases against several youth groups demonstrate that Lukashenka understands the threat of youth emerging as a prodemocratic group. Several prominent youth leaders are in prison, and hundreds of students were expelled from universities for political reasons. Lukashenka is pushing active young people to emigrate but most are staying to fight.

The "Gas War" at the beginning of this year has shown Belarusian society that Lukshenka's promises of stability and an economic miracle were a house of cards. Now the state budget will have less funding for the project dearest to Lukashenka-raising the salaries of the police and the KGB. He has decided to move against individual entrepreneurs-an active group of 200,000 self-employed traders-because they are not controlled by the state and do not pay enough taxes. So we now have several new protest groups, and perhaps the police will not find it as worthwhile to defend Lukashenka. We believe that during the next few years, democratic changes will come to Belarus. Belarusian society is ready for them, and a growing part is ready to fight for them. Our society needed more than a decade to gain an appreciation for democracy and human rights as real values, and we increasingly understand that economic prosperity can only be achieved in a democratic society.