More seriously though, Belarus isn’t just one of Russia’s closest allies (the term “puppet state” would be more accurate) it’s also one of only a handful of European countries completely outside the Council of Europe, which means it is not subject to the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. Russia is subject to the Court’s rulings – and as far as I know there are more cases lodged with the Court against Russia than any other country. Russia has repeatedly blocked attempts to reform the Court in order to ensure that cases are dealt with more quickly, because the current set-up was never designed to deal with the huge number of cases coming out of Russia and so blocking reform delays by years the point at which the Kremlin has to admit they’re abusing their own people.

Because Belarus is outside the Court’s reach, Alexeev has just had his human rights essentially anulled – Minsk is Russia’s Guantanamo in this respect: it’s the place they send “undesirables” for various abuses that wouldn’t be possible in Russia itself. This is probably the darkest turn this story has taken so far: Alexeev is being treated the same way that a terrorist would be in the USA.

I think that the International Olympic Committee should be notified as well. And their prominent US sponsors.