"Giving Apple-Sauce To People": Activists Held Picket Outside Ministry Of Information

Activists held a picket in protest against the blocking of Charter-97 and pressure on blogger Nexta.

Activist and film director Volha Nikalaichyk together with European Belarus activist Artsiom Charniauka and another girl, who does not want to disclose her name, held an unusual picket outside the Ministry of Information in Minsk on Sunday, February 25, Belsat reports.

They brought a large pot of hot apple-sauce and started distributing it to passers-by. According to the activists’ idea, it will help draw attention to the repression of independent media and pressure on blogger Nexta.

The organizers are outraged that the authorities are pressuring the media for taxpayers' money: the Charter-97 website has already been blocked for a month, Belarusian Partisan was blocked earlier. The activists are also discontented about the beating of Belsat operator Andrei Kozel at the polling station.

The picketers told curious passers-by about all those cases, explaining that the state media and the Ministry of Information "give citizens the apple-sauce."

The police arrived at the picket site, when the activists had already packed up their things and left.