Italian Organization Terra del Fuoco Awards Belarusian Human Rights Activists
On 3 February in Krakow the first Train of Memory award, established by the Italian NGO Terra del Fuoco with the aim to symbolically award persons or organizations for human rights activity was given. A human rights activist Ales Bialiatski was awarded with an installation by a famous Italian artist Piero Gilardi. The ceremony was attended by more than 500 representatives of youth NGOs from 17 countries. The name and time of the award are meant to remind about the yearly commemoration of Nazism victims, when hundreds of youngsters from different countries visit Osvencim concentration camp.
Excerpts from The Square, the latest film by the Belarusian film producer Iury Khashchavatski, were demonstrated. Some of them concerned Lukashenka’s notorious statements about the role of Adolph Hitler in the German history. Participants of the event shared their opinions about similarity of the past and present totalitarian regimes.
Ales Bialiatski presented a short analysis of the human rights situation in Belarus. In private, he pointed that the genetic roots of Lukashenka’s regime track back to Stalin’s rule famous for complete disrespect and outrage of human rights and that the problem of the Belarusian society is not only in A.Lukashenka’s person, but also that a part of the Belarusian society that thinks in totalitarian categories and thus supports totalitarianism and another part has a good understanding of what is going on in Belarus, but closes eyes to it and doesn’t show any public activity.
On the proposal of Ales Bialiatski and Valiantsin Stefanovich youth from 17 countries of Europe adopted a resolution with the demand to immediately release all political prisoners in Belarus.
The resolution was signed by about 500 persons. All signatures and the text of the resolution were passed to Terra del Fuoco that will send them to Prosecutor General of Belarus, chairman of the Supreme Court, head of the government S.Sidorski and president A.Lukashenka.
Here’s the complete text of the resolution:
We, representatives of NGOs, participants of Phoenix of Memory, express our deep concern with the existence of politically motivated harassment of opponents of A.Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus.
We express our decisive protest and demand from the Belarusian authorities the immediate release of all political prisoners and cessation of harassment and repressions against activists of country’s civil society.
