By Porter Anderson, editor-in-chief of @Porter_Anderson
A few days before the now controversial Elections on 9 August, PEN International issued a joint brief for the 24 PEN centres held in various parts of the world. This fear focuses on the claim that Sviatlana Aleksievi of the PEN Centre in Belarus has stated that there are two dozen political prisoners whose freedom of expression, according to the centre, was abolished.
“Among them are bloggers and journalists, culture buyers,” Aleksievic wrote, “those who in 2020 awakened Belarusian society and, for the first time in 26 years, created a serious festival for Aliaksandr Luka-enka’s authoritarian regime [long time Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko] Array
“Today, Belarusian writers are their other people as history is written in the streets and squares, not in the offices.”
The Belarusian Writers’ Union then appealed for solidarity, this message being published through the Council of European Writers, in which the union calls for an end to violence against nonviolent protesters whose crowds have shaken Minsk.
The Belarusian writers’ union – in line with national fury in the broadest sense – demands “free, fair and transparent” elections that resistance in the country wants to obtain.The organization has also produced a series of heartbreaking anecdotes – reproduced here through the Council of European Writers: on the serious mistreatment of imprisoned protesters who have allegedly been assaulted and shamed by the public.
In fact, this morning (August 21), The Economist (which does not allow its editors) published an article describing, as reported through other means, how “prisoners were forced to kneel with their hands on their backs for hours in crowded cells.Men already stripped them naked, beaten them and raped them with arrears.
“Repression was ostentatious,” continues The Economist’s article.”Some of the victims appeared on state television.On August 19, at least four other people were killed. The aim was to terrorize citizens and force regime officials into dedicating atrocities together, a tactic used through dictators and mobsters to prevent de-elections.”
And in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum of the recent Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (Penguin Random House / Doubleday, July 21), she published this morning a new essay on “The 22-Year-Old Blogger Behind the Protests in Belarus.”»
The protesters, he says, bring the flag of the state of Belarus but the “red-white-red-red striped flag, a flag first used in 1918 and long related to the independence of Belarus.”
And the “wonderful feat of coordination” of thousands of citizens who peacefully flock to the streets of the capital, Minsk and small towns, are guided through the young “Stsiapan Sviatlou”, who lives and runs a channel called Nexta Live in the encrypted messaging application Telegram..»
Applebaum, who, as Publishing Perspectives readers know, is part of this year’s Cundill History Prize jury, wrote a very informative article on how more than 2 million people stay in the organization because Sviatlou operates safely from Poland (an Applebaum the country well knows), “a position where police can’t get the knowledge on their phone.It’s wise to read what you write and send you information.”
In making its own statement, the European Council of Writers said it “fully supports the call of its member organization, the Union of Belarusian Writers (UBW), for solidarity, freedom of expression and new and democratic elections.”
Our independent resources have sent us reports of brutal police violence on the streets and even worse abuse in prisons, mental torture, indiscriminate beatings and rape.This violence is directed against all Belarusians who exercise their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.and who call for the implementation of genuinely democratic principles in their country.
“We urge the governments of the European Union to remain silent, but to exert strong pressure on Alexander Lukashenko’s autocratic regime, to end this violence and protect the values on which the European Union is based.”
Indeed, on Thursday, August 20, The New York Times reported in a raid that European Union leaders had rightly rejected the effects of the August 9 elections in Belarus on Wednesday, calling them illegitimate and saying “‘They would soon impose sanctions on those affected in voter fraud and crackdown on demonstrations.
There are also, of course, reasons to be involved about the mass protests taking place in Belarus due to the presence of the COVID-19 coronavirus there.: 27 am GMT) cites 69.50 cases of contagion in the small national population of 9.5 million, with 632 reported deaths.
Nina George concludes: “Belarus is a component of Europa.No leave other Belarusians alone in their efforts to build a truly democratic country.We will all have to use our ultimate hard democratic instrument: our words.
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Tags: Anne Applebaum, Authors, Belarus, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Doubleday, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Publication, PEN International, Penguin Random House, Political Books, Writers
It’s not just the writings your people … artists, doctors, staff do the same …We see how top the country is! I hope they win without further violence.