An imaginative pro-democracy protest that saw teddy bears dropped from the sky over Belarus has not softened the stance of President Alexander Lukashenko - but it has brought the authoritarian regime some unwanted international attention.

More than 800 stuffed animals – each with an individual parachute – were dropped from a small plane by four advertising professionals from Sweden in order to raise awareness of human rights issues. It was inspired by the arrest in February of Belarusian activist Paval Vinahradau, who was detained for staging a toy protest in Minsk.

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The group told NBC News they hoped an ensuing diplomatic spat between Belarus and Stockholm would increase pressure on Lukashenko.

“We’re not really happy, or satisfied, or content, or proud, or anything until we have achieved something real, be that [Lukashenko] changes his policy … or someone changes it for him,” said Per Cromwell, chief executive of Studio Total, a four-person Swedish advertising firm.

 “I guess it’s not over yet.”

The project was one year in the making, Cromwell said, and the goal was to raise awareness about the human rights abuses taking place in the former Soviet republic, where Lukashenko has been in power since the mid-1990s.

In 2004, Lukashenko amended the constitution's two-term presidential limit, a decision harshly criticized by Western powers, including the United States Bush administration which described him as the "last dictator in Europe" in charge of an "outpost of tyranny.”

A country of about 9.5 million, Belarus remains one of the most repressive states in Europe, Yulia Gorbunova, a Human Rights Watch researcher based in Moscow, told NBC News.

“It has a complete disregard for basically all fundamental freedoms -- freedom of assembly and association, freedom of speech, freedom from torture and degrading treatment -- virtually no independent media... no independent judicial system,” she added.

The government is so repressive, Gorbunova said, that the opposition and the civil society have no opportunity to grow.

This is the same country where last year, a one-armed man was among the 400 people arrested for taking part in a clapping protest.

Cromwell said Studio Total’s intention was to highlight the absurdity of life under Lukashenko, while showing support for the daunting struggle of a shattered opposition that is closely monitored by the KGB, the country’s security agency.

“We’re doing what we can to make people laugh. It’s something that a dictator cannot survive,” he said.

Belarus arrests two in wake of teddy bear airdrop

“You can’t really win a fight against a teddy bear because if you don’t do anything you will look ridiculous, or if you start fighting back, you will look ridiculous,” Cromwell added.

On the day of the airdrop, July 4, Cromwell was driving the getaway car, parked halfway between the Lithuanian border, where the plane took off, and Minsk. If anything went awry, he was ready to pick up the pilot and co-pilot and drive to the Swedish embassy. His colleagues, Tomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey, were on the plane along with the teddy bears. Mazetti had learned to fly for the occasion, and he had only gotten his license a few weeks before the operation, Cromwell said.

It was a sunny day, and the flight path was a straight line from the Lithuanian border to Minsk, but Cromwell said they were afraid their plane might get shot down. In 1995, when a hot-air balloon accidentally crossed into Belarusian airspace, Lukashenko’s security officials fired a missile that killed the two Americans on board.

Air traffic controllers in a tower in Minsk contacted the plane, but Mazetti and Frey couldn’t understand what they were saying in Russian. After dropping their cargo and spending less than two hours in Belarus’ air space, the two flew the plane back across the border.

Belarus didn't publicly acknowledge the airdrop until later in the month, when Lukashenko criticized military authorities for allowing the plane to enter Belarusian air space.

He then fired the generals in charge of air defense and the border patrol, and police arrested two civilians — a blogger who posted pictures of the teddy bears on his website and a man who rented an apartment to Cromwell during his short stay in Minsk.

Last week, two journalists were also arrested for posing for photographs holding the air-dropped teddy bears.

On Aug. 3, the Swedish ambassador to Minsk was expelled in a move that the European Union said worsened the tension already present between the bloc and Belarus.

"Everyone around the table [was] absolutely clear that this was not just a situation merely between Sweden and Belarus. It's a situation that ... affects the EU's relations with Belarus," Olof Skoog, a Swedish diplomat who chairs talks on foreign policy issues among EU states, said on Aug. 10, according to Reuters.

"There is going to be a very clear message to all Belarusian ambassadors around Europe in the next few days expressing full solidarity with the Swedes on this," he added.

Since then, Cromwell said he and his colleagues have been receiving “Google-translated” messages from the KGB, in a tone that ranges from threatening to complaining, and Facebook friend requests from newly created bogus accounts.

Belarus, Sweden kick out ambassadors as teddy bear war heats up

Last week, the online onslaught culminated with a summons from the KGB, threatening the Swedes with fines or "correctional work for up to two years, or imprisonment for up to six months” if they don’t show up in Belarus in 10 days to assist the agency with "investigative actions" related to the group’s “illegal crossing.”

Responding to the invitation in an open letter to Lukashenko published on Aug. 14, Studio Total said it “[felt] bad for making people laugh at [Lukashenko] and [his] super-expensive air defense." The group also extended Lukashenko an invitation to Sweden.

“Our only demands is that you behave as politely as you can. (No threats of torture and the likes) and that you release all the political prisoners in Belarus," the letter read.

European Union sanctions against Belarus already include a visa ban and an asset freeze imposed on Lukashenko and his inner circle, an arms embargo and a ban on more than 30 Belarusian companies to conduct business in the trading zone.

“What this can achieve is to get the awareness and the attention, and to create some kind of momentum for the opposition,” said Cromwell. “But of course throwing teddy bears over a dictator does not create real long-term change.”

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Zimbabwean officials on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was critically ill in Singapore, saying he was well and on vacation there with his family, and was expected to return home this week.

Mugabe is one of Africa's longest serving leaders and has ruled the former British colony in southern Africa since 1980. He is sharing power with political rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in a fragile coalition formed three years ago.

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The 88-year-old president has been the subject of several health scares in recent years, with some reports saying he has prostate cancer, but in February interviews with state media he laughed off suggestions that he was seriously ill.

Media reports in Britain and elsewhere on Tuesday suggested Mugabe was ‘fighting for his life’.

However, two senior officials from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party angrily denied the reports. "The president is well and away on a private holiday to help his daughter prepare for post-graduate studies, but we are expecting him home this week," said one of the two officials, who declined to be named.

"But some sick and malicious people are spreading false stories about him being seriously ill while others are saying he is dead or dying out there," he added.

Asked whether the president had also used his 10-day visit to Singapore for a medical check-up, one of the officials said: "We are not going to be engaged over rumours, speculation and wishful thinking."

A Twitter account in the name of ZANU-PF appeared to defend Mugabe by saying the leader had merely gone shopping with his wife, although the account it is widely assumed to be a spoof.

Mugabe has made frequent visits to Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

A terse Zimbabwean government statement saying a weekly cabinet meeting set for Tuesday had been postponed to Thursday had fed the rash of media speculation about the president's health. Mugabe usually chairs cabinet meetings.

Mugabe, who celebrated his 88th birthday on Feb. 21, was endorsed by his party as its presidential candidate for a general election he wants to be held before the end of this year despite opposition from his major political rivals.

Analysts say Mugabe will face a tough challenge convincing voters to extend his 32-year rule after a devastating economic crisis many blame on ZANU-PF.

Although ZANU-PF officials rally behind Mugabe in public, in private many want him to retire and pass the baton to a younger heir due to fears his advanced age may cost the party victory in the upcoming election.

This sentiment within ZANU-PF has intensified since reports, based on a June 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, that Mugabe is suffering from prostate cancer.

Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

BERLIN -- Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus, on Sunday criticized EU politicians who have threatened him with sanctions and in an apparent riposte to the German foreign minister's branding him "Europe's last dictator," said: "Better to be a dictator than gay."

Guido Westerwelle is Germany's first openly gay minister.

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European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels on Friday called for new measures to pressure the Belarus president over alleged human rights abuses.

In spite of Lukashenko's attack -- which seemed an apparent riposte to Westerwelle -- the German foreign minister said on Monday he would not flinch from seeking to improve human rights in Belarus.

Westerwelle responded on Monday: "This statement speaks for itself." He added: "I'm not going to retreat from my engagement on human rights and democracy in Belarus one a single millimeter."

Chancellor Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert also criticised Lukashenko's comments on Monday.

"Unfortunately (the comment) very clearly shows the position that the Belorussian president takes in relation to basic rights," he said. "It's interesting to find out this way that Mr Lukashenko also now classes himself as a dictator.

"That is the view that the federal government reached some time ago and on which the Belorussian president delivers proof almost daily," he added.

Lukashenko has led Belarus since 1994, retaining Soviet-style controls over the economy and cracking down on opposition and independent media.

Lukashenko said Belarus would give a strong reaction to any sanctions, according to local news agency Belta.

"This is absolute hysteria," Belta reported him as saying. "And as you can see, at the forefront there are two types of politicians ... one lives in Warsaw, another in Berlin."

"Whoever was shouting about dictatorship there ... when I heard that, I thought: it's better to be a dictator than gay."

Belarus opposition leaders arrested after riots

European leaders said any new sanctions should target those in Belarus who are responsible for human rights violations and repression of civil society, as well as people supporting Lukashenko's government or benefiting from it.

Tit-for-tat expulsions
Poland, Belarus's direct neighbor, has played a leading role in formulating EU policy towards Minsk -- often drawing fire from Belarus for doing so.

The call for sanctions followed a diplomatic spat between the EU and Belarus last week, when EU pressure on Minsk escalated into tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.

Belarus expelled the EU ambassador in Minsk and recalled its own envoy from Brussels after the EU imposed sanctions on 21 Belarussian judges and police officers. In response, the bloc's 27 capitals agreed to temporarily withdraw their own ambassadors.

The EU sanctions target the authoritarian country's repression of political opposition, including frequent jailings.

They date back to the December 2010 presidential elections, in which more than 700 people — including seven candidates — were arrested in the wake of a massive protest against alleged vote fraud. Lukashenko was declared the winner.

Lukashenko has criticized homosexuality in the past. Last year he said he "did not like gays."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A sculpture of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco set inside a fridge was drawing mixed reviews at a contemporary art fair, which opened Wednesday in Madrid.

The work is by Spanish artist Eugenio Merino, who depicts the general wearing a green uniform and sunglasses with his knees bent inside the fridge, according to a report by AFP.  The fridge is decorated to resemble a Coca-Cola logo.

Merino said the sculpture “Always Franco” was designed to symbolize how persistence of the general as a topic of conversation in Spain, despite his death in 1975. He ruled Spain from 1939.

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Read more by AFP on France24.com

"It represents the idea that in Spain people are keeping the image of Franco alive. We don't stop talking about him, debating about him. A fridge is where things are kept alive and fresh," he told AFP.

The sculpture is made of resin, silicon and human hair. The art fair, known as ARCO, runs Wednesday-Sunday and features works from 215 art galleries in 29 countries.

"There are people who really like it, others who can't stand it. Spain is very divided on the topic of the dictatorship," Merino told AFP. 

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