Niakliayeu, Statkevich, Siuchyk And Hundreds Of Other People – Honor To You!

If not for you, then there would have been no permission for any concert.

Only the lazy has not criticized the organizers of the demonstration on the anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic! The main message – the processions would lead to nothing and would be brutally dispersed. Siarhei Dubavets and Valiantsin Akudovich were with those accusing the demonstrators. And that was already too much. You can’t say about these people, as Jan Hus said about the woman that was throws wood into the fire, on which a reformist was being burnt: "Blessed innocence!"

Dubavets, who wrote the text of "The Last Attempt To Understand Statkevich" with unequivocal criticism of the demonstration before the holiday, after the holiday said, "Conscious people refuse to protest with the heavy heart. They realize that they haven’t strength for the final protest and that the power is despicable and won’t come to fight openly, because they are conscious."

Akudovich was strongly critical about the march even after the holiday: "cynically speaking, every detainee factored out at least five hundred people who were gathered for the permitted celebration." And the political opposition is a needlessness: "Our political opposition is an oxymoron (like a living dead)."

There are some questions. Do we have nothing to protest against? The regime is changing, evolving towards democracy and Belarusianization? The Constitution is not violated, the murderers of the abducted politicians have been found and punished? Free elections are held?

The fact that demonstrations are small is caused by the whole system, the intimidating machine that is carefully built and will be built further by Lukashenka. Taking into account the wide range of repression against the protesters – from beatings to imprisonment, not to mention the loss of job, etc., people who in spite of everything go to the square to protest, deserve respect, honor and recognition.

Niakliayeu, Statkevich, Siuchyk, tens and hundreds of people, whom I cannot call by names and surnames. Honor and glory to you, we, the usual Belarusian patriots, thank you! You are our face, you save our honor before the whole world!

It was you whom the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus Miklos Haraszti noticed:

"Last weekend, Belarusian authorities again violated massively the rights of citizens to peaceful gatherings in Minsk and throughout the country. This is the evidence of both the symbolic and practical denial of the President of the country from any progress in the field of human rights."

If not for you, then there would be no permission for any concert. You know better than others that no concerts will change the regime, but you still have the courage and the strength to act. It's understaneable when we do not go to protests because we are afraid for ourselves, our health, work, for close ones (as they are without us). But why invent a theoretical basis for it as an excuse and self justification? It's good, if they do it silently but to do it publicly: to condemn, even to mock the protesters – this is already too much. It's abnormal, unmanly.

Ales Krautsevich, a Belorussian historian and archeologist, Doctor of History, Professor, Laureate of the František Bogushevich Award for 2013, Radio Svaboda