Even Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, called Europe’s last dictator, thinks that denying D.C. residents their voting rights is strange.

Belarus has questionable democratic credentials, so it might have some authority in pointing out when other countries aren’t living up to democratic ideals.

Yesterday Foreign Policy reported that the landlocked Eastern European country released a report lambasting 23 European countries and the U.S. for their human rights records (likely a cynical response to the U.S.’s annual cataloging of human rights misdeeds by other countries), and one of its criticisms hit particularly close to home—D.C.’s lack of voting rights.

In the section focusing on the U.S., the Belarusian government noted that “600 thousand of Washington’s residents are not entitled to elect their representatives to the Senate and the House of Representatives.” This, it claims, is a violation of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ provision affording all people the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs.

Obviously, the report should be taken with a grain of salt. This is Belarus, after all, and the report also criticizes the U.S. for not allowing states to secede based on—wait for it—those petitions on the White House’s website. According to Belarus, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee have a right to be free!

Still, Belarus isn’t alone in pointing out the contradiction that D.C. faces: it might be the seat of U.S. democracy, but its 630,000 residents lack many of those same democratic rights. In 2005, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe backed D.C.’s request for full democratic representation. In 2004, it was the Organization of American States that found the U.S. in violation of basic human rights treaties for denying D.C. residents their rights.

Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who long championed a bill that would have given D.C. a single voting seat in the House of Representatives, often told the story of a 2005 trip to Hong Kong, where he preached to officials there about democratic rights. “Give your nation’s capital the right to vote and then come talk to us about democracy in Hong Kong,” he was sternly told.

As President President Alexander Lukashenko, known as Europe’s last dictator, would say: Дайце акруга Калумбія права голасу! That’s “Give D.C. voting rights!” to you.