In Belarus, citizens are put in jail literally for a smiley, let alone private chat messages. Before they are jailed, they are beaten up and are forced to present public excuses on camera. These public excuses are then aired on state TV, Telegram channels and published on Youtube as advertising.
Some things are better in Belarus than in North Korea, some are worse, but politically, the regimes are similarily totalitarian.
Same happens in Ukraine btw (citizens are sentenced for a T-shirt). Yet you even know nothing about this (nor do you really care), because Ukraine is "democracy".
There's much more to tell here, but this is just a bare example.
Here is the link that reports about the smiley case from Belarus [1]. It is a reputable news source, run by former tut.by journalists. What is your reference?
>does NOT say anything about a sentence for a smiley
The sentence is "two years of forced labour without displacement", the article says it clearly. This is much harsher than the 1 year suspended sentence of the Ukrainian dude for wearing the CCCP T-shirt.
Not that I support punishing people for wearing svastika or red star, but this is common in many European countries, Germany and Baltic states are the most known examples.
Your article does not say that she was sentenced specifically FOR the smiley (and not i.e. for something she wrote online).
On another hand, you are saying that sentence for a T-shirt is "common" (in my understanding it means that Estonia is very far, probably much farther than Belarus, from being a democracy).
I can also reply to that with examples of people sentenced for tweets in EU or USA.
This is also "common". And this discussion is actually getting nowhere, just shows that we have different biases.
Some things are better in Belarus than in North Korea, some are worse, but politically, the regimes are similarily totalitarian.