section_path: Public life/Controversial statements
section_name: Controversial statements
paragraph_text: Controversial statements
  
  Lukashenko has made several controversial statements during his presidency which have been regarded as antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic.
  
  In 1995, Lukashenko made a remark in which he named Adolf Hitler as a role model for his presidential system in Belarus: "The history of Germany is a copy of the history of Belarus. Germany was raised from ruins thanks to firm authority and not everything connected with that well-known figure Hitler was bad. German order evolved over the centuries and attained its peak under Hitler. This corresponds with our understanding of a presidential republic and the role of a president in it." Lukashenko refused to take the quote back, but stated that the consequences of Hitler's leadership style in foreign policy had been bad.
  
  In October 2007, Lukashenko was accused of making antisemitic comments; addressing the "miserable state of the city of Babruysk " on a live broadcast on state radio, he stated: "This is a Jewish city, and the Jews are not concerned for the place they live in. They have turned Babruysk into a pigsty. Look at Israel—I was there and saw it myself... I call on Jews who have money to come back to Babruysk." Members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the Belarusian ambassador to the US, Mikhail Khvostov, addressing Lukashenko's comments with a strong request to retract them, and the comments also caused a negative reaction from Israel.
  
  Consequently, Pavel Yakubovich, editor of Belarus Today, was sent to Israel, and in a meeting with the Israel Foreign Ministry said that Lukashenko's comment was "a mistake that was said jokingly, and does not represent his positions regarding the Jewish people" and that he was "anything but anti-Semitic," and had been "insulted by the mere accusation." The Belarusian Ambassador to Israel, Igor Leshchenya, stated that the president had a "kind attitude toward the Jewish people", and Sergei Rychenko, the press secretary at the Belarusian Embassy in Tel Aviv, said parts of Lukashenko's comments had been mistranslated.
  
  On 4 March 2012, two days after EU leaders (including openly gay German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle) had called for new measures to pressure Lukashenko over alleged human rights abuses in Belarus at a summit in Brussels, Lukashenko provoked diplomatic rebuke from Germany after commenting that it was "better to be a dictator than gay" in response to Westerwelle having referred to him as "Europe's last dictator" during the meeting.
  
  After some of the initial candidates for the 2020 Belarusian presidential election were imprisoned, three women involved with the candidates, led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya emerged as leading opposition against him and contested the results of the election. Lukashenko has spoken dismissively about the role of women in Belarusian society, saying that "society is not mature enough to vote for a woman" and, referring specifically to Tsikanouskaya, that "she just cooked a tasty cutlet, maybe fed the children, and the cutlet smelled nice And now there's supposed to be a debate about some issues" and that the burden of the presidency would cause her to "collapse, poor thing".
  
  In July 2021, Lukashenko was accused of making antisemitic comments during his Independence Day speech to the armed forces; saying "the Jews managed to force the world to remember the Holocaust. The entire world grovels before them and gives in to them. They are afraid to say a single word out of place" and adding "We are tolerant and likeable. We left things alone until it got to the point where others started attacking us and the memory of our efforts." The Israeli government said the comments were "unacceptable" and summoned the chargé d'affaires at the Belarus embassy in Israel.