Role of Czech Republic in the Development of Belarus Civil Society

Abstract

The reaction of the Belarusian authorities to the August 2020 demonstrations, drew strong condemnation from the Czech Republic. The article analyzes the reasons for such close attention of the Czech officials to the Belarusian problems. The historical context of the Czech Republic’s support for the Belarusian opposition is outlined; revealed the human rights and value aspects of the foreign policy of Prague, where support for democracy and human rights is an integral feature of Czech diplomacy at its present stage of development. The author examines the «Program of Transformational Cooperation» of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He comes to the conclusion that the Belarusian direction has always been among the priorities and has not disappeared from the agenda. However, the stability of the Belarusian regime led to the fact that the Czechs began to contribute to the development of democracy in other countries, where its «implantation» was more real.

Keywords

• belarus
• czech republic
• civil society
• democracy
• belarusian protests
• social movements