The European Union, reports the New York Times, has placed “travel restrictions on President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus and 30 more of the country’s officials, blocking their entrance to much of Europe as punishment for election tampering and violent crackdowns on dissent in the former Soviet state.”

In barring Lukashenko and his cronies, the European Union slams Belarus’ “three state-controlled television [that] endlessly flatter the president and criticize his perceived foes.” Good thing we don’t have to put up with anything like that in a democracy.