Eurotopics.net

The human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) has stripped Putin critic Alexei Navalny of his non-violent 'prisoner of conscience' status following complaints about comments he had made in the past. AI was referring to discriminatory statements made by Navalny more than ten years ago against migrants and certain regions and countries which he has never retracted. Whom does Amnesty's decision hurt most?

In Belarus, one opponent of the regime after another is being put on trial. The trial against ex-banker Viktar Babaryka, who was Lukashenka's greatest adversary for a time, started last week. A day later, two reporters were put behind bars over a live stream. And earlier this week a court sentenced young protesters to several years in a labour camp or prison.

After weeks and in some cases months of far-reaching restrictions on public life in many European countries, calls for the anti-pandemic measures to be eased are growing louder. At the same time, new virus variants are reducing the effectiveness of the measures. Europe's press reflects the dilemma governments across the continent face.

Roughly 100 miners of the Lupeni mine in Romania's Jiu Valley (Valea Jiului) are staging a strike underground because they haven't been paid in three months. Their employer Hunedoara S.A., ultimately controlled by the state, has been insolvent for 14 months. The government has now promised to pay the wages and social welfare contributions. The media lambasts Romania for condemning the mining region to a future without hope.

France's Higher Education Minister Frédérique Vidal is being criticised for a study she commissioned on 'Islamo-gauchisme'. It is to examine whether leftist and pro-Islam views are limiting the spectrum of research topics. The country's press is at odds over whether the universities actually have an ideology problem, and if so, how to tackle it.