President patents title

last updated 8 January 2015

Minsk

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is the only person in Belarus allowed to use the title “president,” the totalitarian dictator decreed this week. Leaders of companies, unions, and other groups who currently use the title within their organizations will have to change their letterheads and official documents. The domain-squatting move is not original; former dictator and alleged cannibal Idi Amin enforced a similar decree when he ruled Uganda in the 1970s. “It is tasteless,” said Alyaksandr Potupa, who heads the Belarusian Union of Businessmen. “It will make the international community laugh at us.”