This is a salient question. I'm not familiar with human rights abuses in Belarus, but some cursory research indicates that there's a high degree of intersection between their abuses and Singapore's abuses.
For one, they both take political prisoners. They both abuse the judiciary as a means of silencing opposition. Show trials and trumped up charges against political opponents? Yep, and yep.
Saliently, from the Wikipedia article on this subject[0]:
> "International documents reflect that the Belarusian courts that are subject to an authoritarian executive apparatus, routinely disregard the rule of law and exist to rubber-stamp decisions made outside the courtroom; this is tantamount to the de facto non-existence of courts as impartial judicial forums."
This is pretty similar to the claims that have been leveled at Singapore in the past. The use of trumped-up criminal charges to silence and even imprison political dissidents.
They're even similar in the Press Freedom rankings (147th vs. 151st).
The only major difference is that Belarus has been frequently accused to racist oppression of their ethnic minorities, whereas Singapore's abuses do not seem to be race-based.
The oppression is much broader, more random and much more heavy handed in Belarus. There are political prisoners as of right now in Belarus, if there are any in Singapore, they are not known to the public (Yes, I know they have a history, but we're talking about the present). Since everything is state controlled in Belarus, if you fall out of favour with the government, you place the careers of yourself and your family in jeopardy, and university admission and apartment waiting lists etc get a lot more complicated - again, subject to total randomness.
For one, they both take political prisoners. They both abuse the judiciary as a means of silencing opposition. Show trials and trumped up charges against political opponents? Yep, and yep.
Saliently, from the Wikipedia article on this subject[0]:
> "International documents reflect that the Belarusian courts that are subject to an authoritarian executive apparatus, routinely disregard the rule of law and exist to rubber-stamp decisions made outside the courtroom; this is tantamount to the de facto non-existence of courts as impartial judicial forums."
This is pretty similar to the claims that have been leveled at Singapore in the past. The use of trumped-up criminal charges to silence and even imprison political dissidents.
They're even similar in the Press Freedom rankings (147th vs. 151st).
The only major difference is that Belarus has been frequently accused to racist oppression of their ethnic minorities, whereas Singapore's abuses do not seem to be race-based.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Belarus