VOLNY CHOR
Belarus today
Text 1
In August 2020, Belarus was rocked by protests against Lukashenka's government. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country took to the streets. The largest mass rally in the history of Belarus took place in Minsk on August 16th. About 400,000 people took part in it. During the protest movement, Belarusians felt that they were a single nation, recognized their identity. On this wave new works of art started to be born: poems, songs, plays, paintings. The Belarusian intelligentsia shone at the forefront of the protest: musicians, writers, artists took to the streets to express their position through art, which united and inspired Belarusians!
Text 2
From the first day of the protests, the authorities began to detain not only those who took part in the demonstrations, but also just random people. They were imprisoned, severely beaten, denied food and water, raped and denied medical care. On August 9th - 10th more than 3000 people were detained in Minsk for taking to the streets to express their civic position. So-called trials were held without lawyers in prison cells. In these small cells of 3 by 4 meters, which were designed for 5-7 people, 30 to 50 people were kept at the same time, deprived of the basic right - to breathe!
Text 3
Belarus today is a solid prison. Since 2020 detentions have continued constantly. The number of criminal cases has been increasing. Every day dozens of people are going through the regime's conveyor system of sentences, fines, prison terms, interrogations, humiliation and violence. In Belarus Belarusian-speaking schools and Belarusian organizations are being closed, thousands of people are being fired and left without the right to work in a profession, forced to leave their country. The regime is trying to stifle the Belarusian people.
People live in fear mentally bracing for trouble. We’ve been taken hostages...
There is not a single person in Belarus today who feels safe....
Text 4
A Belarusian prison is not just freedom restriction .It is hell on earth, where humans have no rights and one can do anything with them and not be punished for it. People are put in punitive isolation cells, the so-called SHIZA, where they are endlessly tortured. They are severely beaten, chemicals are used, they are tortured with cold, not allowed to sleep or change body position. They are deprived of food, water and fresh air. Hundreds of people are denied medical care. It is beneficial for the regime to create conditions for those detained to simply die in prison, supposedly from a disease. More and more often we hear about suicide attempts, hunger strikes and murders in prisons.
There is a war against its own people going on in Belarus today...
Text 5
“You must live your life in a way that you are not ashamed in front of the people who you have met in your lifetime.
And so, having lived through quite a large part of my life, closed in this cell, I can say for sure that I’m not ashamed of my life in front of those, who I have encountered. I am not ashamed before my family. Regardless of the fact that my son is in prison, because his main crime is that he is my son. And I know the mark that the most important people - my children - gave me. They said: "We are not ashamed for our Daddy." So this is what I can wish for you all: that at any part of your path, wherever you are, making any of your decisions, you will hear from these very people the same opinion: that they are not ashamed of you. Thank you!"
Viktar Babaryka was sentenced to 14 years in strict regime prison colony for wanting to run for president and inspiring millions of Belarusians to believe in themselves and in Belarus. The last time his family saw him was in February, 2022. At the end of April, 2022 he was beaten and taken to hospital in a very serious condition. Until now nothing is known about Viktor Babaryka's health and life.
“I was with the people of Lidchyna when they came out to defend their honor! I have nothing to confess to! On the contrary! I am proud that in the most difficult times I held the banner of Change!" Mom, you raised Andrei and me well! No one will say in your face that your sons are thieves or swindlers! On the contrary, I was imprisoned precisely because I told the truth and urged not to put up with crooks!"
Witold Ashurak - murdered on May 21, 2021
"Spring will come, the stones will bloom!"
For the paintings "Belarusian Resistance" and the performance that the famous Belarusian artist Ales Pushkin organized in Ukraine, he was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in strict regime prison colony. In the colony, Ales fell ill with a peptic ulcer. He did not receive any medical help.
Ales Pushkin was killed on July 11, 2023.
Text 6
If you think it doesn't apply to you, you're deluding yourself. We also didn't think this could happen to our country... again… The regime people: security-service agents, KGB agents, supporters and accomplices of the regime from Lukashenka's entourage can move freely around Europe, they live and work among you. We see how terrorist Russia is acting, its behavior is unpredictable. The war can spill over from Ukraine to other parts of Europe. Today the Russian soldier's boot is already walking across Belarusian land as if they were at home. Belarus is being used as a military platform and drawn into the war against the will of the Belarusian people. Our country is simultaneously occupied by Lukashenka’s and Putin's regimes. But the dictators’ voracious appetite possibly won’t stop at this point.
We have the same enemy. The war is very close. We demand sanctions and harsh measures against the perpetrators. We wait for your reaction and concrete actions. We are screaming for rescue and pleading for help!
Text 7
Today Belarus is behind bars
Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk
3 years of imprisonment under 4 articles of the Criminal Code. However this term has been extended several times. Palina was forcibly "treated" in a psychiatric hospital, she was held in the SHIZA isolation cell for more than 180 days.
The political prisoner renounces Belarusian citizenship as a sign of protest against
tortures in the colony.
Ihar Losik
15 years in a strict regime penal colony.
Several times he held a hunger strike in the punitive isolation cell ("SHIZA"). After that he tried to commit suicide.
His wife, Darya Losik, was arrested in October 2022. She was sentenced to two years in prison colony for "facilitating extremist activity".
Stsiapan Latypau
8 years and 6 months in a strict regime penal colony.
The political prisoner is under constant pressure from the colony administration.
In mid-May 2022, Stsiapan was detained in the punitive isolation cell ("SHIZA") for five months.
It is known that Stiapan Latypau swallowed a blade and cut his vein in the colony in protest against the pressure of the administration. At the moment he is suffering from scurvy. Medical care is not provided.
Text 7
Today Belarus is behind bars
Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk
3 years of imprisonment under 4 articles of the Criminal Code. However this term has been extended several times. Palina was forcibly "treated" in a psychiatric hospital, she was held in the SHIZA isolation cell for more than 180 days.
The political prisoner renounces Belarusian citizenship as a sign of protest against
tortures in the colony.
Ihar Losik
15 years in a strict regime penal colony.
Several times he held a hunger strike in the punitive isolation cell ("SHIZA"). After that he tried to commit suicide.
His wife, Darya Losik, was arrested in October 2022. She was sentenced to two years in prison colony for "facilitating extremist activity".
Stsiapan Latypau
8 years and 6 months in a strict regime penal colony.
The political prisoner is under constant pressure from the colony administration.
In mid-May 2022, Stsiapan was detained in the punitive isolation cell ("SHIZA") for five months.
It is known that Stiapan Latypau swallowed a blade and cut his vein in the colony in protest against the pressure of the administration. At the moment he is suffering from scurvy. Medical care is not provided.
Today behind bars there are people who need immediate help.
We have a humanitarian list of political prisoners. They are people suffering from cancer and other serious terminal illnesses, minors, elderly and disabled people, mothers of many children. Since 2020 thanks to the efforts of the international organization Red Cross, the quantity of people visited in Belarisian prisons has been 0 (zero).
Text 8
Belarus today is in captivity.
Belarus today is an occupied country in the center of Europe. Every day the Belarusian people are arrested, convicted and tortured.
Belarusians today are scattered all over Europe.
Belarus today implies ruined families, broken destinies.
Belarus today is fighting for common human values, freedom and the right to be Belarusians!
Today it is Belarus, but who will it be tomorrow?
Text 9
Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians were forced to leave their homeland over the past 4 years. Belarusian emigration has never been so massive. But we do not give up and do not renounce our Motherland. We stand for our country, we fight for freedom and call for solidarity and real support from the whole world…
Song lyrics
Belarus, Our Motherland
Belarus, our Motherland, Motherland
You've made us powerful men .
We have not died and we will never die
as long as you're leading us ahead.
And we do not sorrow for our young lives,
As we do not sorrow for warm blood.
If only it were along a radiant road
our living people proudly marched.
And today we are making an oath to you
that as long as even one stays alive,
Our glorious Kryvitskaya Pogonia
won't be disgraced, we'll rocket it to fame.
In the thickets
In the thickets embedded in mistiness,
In gray gloom, in small hours, in the dawn
we are here to sacrifice ourselves to you
every day and every minute, Belarus.
Neither horror nor pity there's in our hearts,
As with fighting audacity we seethe
that's not strangers who're urging us forward,
but it is you, you lead us to the dawn.
Now the cloudy smoke above our heads is away,
smells of mint and weeds are in the wind
Our golden Belarus, golden Belarus,
It's for you we're going forward, it's for you, yes, for you.
Oh, Belarus, my sweetbrier
Oh, Belarus, oh my sweetbrier,
verduruos leaves, bloom — coral-red!
You will not die in the wild wind,
With mugwort won't be overgrown.
I will become your shiny petals,
with rose's thorns I'll spear my heart ,
How I adore your — shade of metal -
Of your eyes gleaming rays of light!
Enmity will not close the pathway:
in hindrances the spirit grows.
Oh, Belarus, oh my sweetbrier,
verdoruos leaves, bloom — coral-red!
For Sluchchyna
Off the birches the winds were shaking their leaves
And the rowans were losing red tears one by one,
Then we went into struggle to suffer, to die
So that our dreams come to fruition
And we went, warriors, with our Lord's grace,
For our Sluchchyna to fight!
We are surprised that now you sing songs
And tell the tales 'bout us so bright.
We were giving our lives for ourselves and for you,
Belarusians - brothers, and for the blue meadow,
We were struggling for not being sucked in by morass,
And for growing to surprise all the world.
Neither bullets nor bayonets nor muzzles of guns,
Love was only one weapon that we used to have,
Love, that warmed our hearts, but November caught fire
And the grave-mounds were growing behind us.
We were not destined then to be kindling the dawn,
weren't destined to bring our Motherland freedom,
Please, Lord, let our grandchildren raise Belarus
To the heights with their sacrifice and deeds.