Editing Alexander Lukashenko (section)

==== Forced disappearances ====
[[File:Zniknąć 03 - Czarownik ciągnie za uszy.jpg|thumb|A demonstration in [[Warsaw]] in 2004, raising awareness about the disappearances of opposition activists in Belarus]]
In 1999 opposition leaders [[Yury Zacharanka]] and [[Viktar Hanchar]] together with his business associate [[Anatol Krasouski]] disappeared. Hanchar and Krasouski disappeared the same day of a broadcast on state television in which President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the chiefs of his security services to crack down on "opposition scum." Although the [[State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus]] (KGB) had them under constant surveillance, the official investigation announced that the case could not be solved. The investigation of the disappearance of journalist [[Dzmitry Zavadski]] in 2000 has also yielded no results. Copies of a report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which linked senior Belarusian officials to the cases of disappearances, were confiscated.<ref>{{cite news |title=16 Years of Silence: Enforced Disappearances in Belarus Must Be Investigated |url=http://blog.amnestyusa.org/europe/16-years-of-silence-enforced-disappearances-in-belarus-must-be-investigated/ |newspaper=[[Amnesty International]] |date=18 September 2015 |access-date=30 August 2020 |archive-date=21 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170921193101/http://blog.amnestyusa.org/europe/16-years-of-silence-enforced-disappearances-in-belarus-must-be-investigated/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In September 2004, the [[European Union]] and the [[United States]] issued travel bans for five Belarusian officials suspected in being involved in the kidnapping of Zacharanka: Interior Affairs Minister [[Vladimir V. Naumov|Vladimir Naumov]], Prosecutor General [[Viktor Sheiman]], Minister for Sports and Tourism Yuri Sivakov, and Colonel [[Dmitri Pavlichenko]] from the Belarus Interior Ministry.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/28-09-2004/7115-nongrata-0/ |title=USA, EU declare Belarus officials personas non grata |publisher=[[Pravda]] |date=28 September 2008 |access-date=3 March 2015 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402121251/http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/28-09-2004/7115-nongrata-0/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In December 2019, [[Deutsche Welle]] published a documentary film in which Yury Garavski, a former member of a special unit of the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Belarus)|Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs]], confirmed that it was his unit which had arrested, taken away and murdered Zecharanka and that they later did the same with Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krassouski.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-how-death-squads-targeted-opposition-politicians/a-51685204|title=Belarus: How death squads targeted opposition politicians|last1=Trippe|first1=Christian F.|last2=Sotnik|first2=Ekaterina|date=16 December 2019|publisher=[[Deutsche Welle]]|language=en|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=18 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118232619/https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-how-death-squads-targeted-opposition-politicians/a-51685204|url-status=live}}</ref>