Hundreds of activists were also arrested after protesting Lukashenko's 2006 presidential win, including opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich [JURIST reports]. While Lukashenko has since sought to improve his country's ties with western nations, the US State Department has historically criticized Belarus' human rights record [JURIST report]. The UN General Assembly Third Committee and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights [JURIST reports] have similarly denounced Belarus for human rights abuses. In 2008, the Belarus KGB detained at least 16 journalists [JURIST report] and searched their homes and offices for materials that allegedly libel Lukashenko. Also in 2008, Belarusian district courts sentenced at least 55 demonstrators [JURIST report], including journalists, for participating in a banned "Freedom Day" rally in Minsk to protest the presidency of Lukashenko. An opposition activist who was critical of Lukashenko during his 2006 presidential campaign was sentenced [JURIST report] to three years in jail in 2008 by a Belarusian court after being arrested for making comments that Lukashenko was connected to the disappearances of opposition leaders Yuri Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar and Anatoly Krasovsky.

Last year, Switzerland's Federal Council and Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) [official websites] introduced legislation to establish stricter rules on assisted suicide after a consultation with local governments, government agencies and other organizations found that 75 percent of respondents favored such a bill. In 2007, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that people with serious mental illnesses may be permitted to commit physician assisted suicide under certain conditions. Also last year, the UK chief prosecutor issued a new policy for prosecuting assisted suicide cases, that, while not totally legalizing the practice, introduced six public interest considerations against prosecution, including compassion of the suspect, an effort to dissuade the victim and reporting the suicide to the police. Barbara Coombs Lee [President, Compassion and Choices] argued in support of the UK's measures [JURIST op-ed] that assisted suicide for terminally ill adults "has become a necessity for peace of mind in an age when medical science has turned the dying process into a long, slow, tortuous path of pain and degradation of function and personhood." In the US, after a ruling by the Montana supreme court [JURIST report] last year, assisted suicide is now legal in three states: Montana, Oregon and Washington.

Ershad came to power in 1982 after ousting the elected president Justice Abdus Sattar. He then suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament and declared himself the chief martial law administrator. The Seventh Amendment was passed in 1986 to amend the constitution to legitimize Ershad's usurpation.