Belarusians came to the Consulate General of the Republic of Belarus in Bialystok to express their solidarity with the imprisoned musicians of the Tor Band and Nizkiz groups as well as other cultural figures who are persecuted by the Lukashenka regime. They demanded the release of all political prisoners and talked about the importance of culture in the life of the people, Radio Wnet reports.
Belarusians came to the Consulate General with white-red-white flags and banners with images, in particular, of Tor Band and Nizkiz musicians. As the organizer of the action Jan Abadouski told the purpose of the action is to support cultural figures repressed by the Lukashenka regime. And there were 148 of them at the end of December last year, here he referred to the Belarusian Council of Culture. This is how he assessed the recent detention and trials of the members of the Nizkiz group.
“The assessment is that the Lukashenko regime is afraid of everything, afraid even of people who sing protest songs, songs of freedom, so they should be arrested. And, unfortunately, the Lukashenko regime will not stop there. There will be further arrests, further detentions. Therefore, we hope that the remaining bands will go here to Europe, where they can go to sing concerts rather than be behind bars”, – said Abadouski.
“Cultural figures in Belarus are being repressed not for their actions, but for writing, singing, and playing in order to show us Belarusians that we are, that we know our culture”, – said cultural critic Regina Lavor.
“The fact that musicians and artists are being repressed should give us a signal so that we are even more interested in our history and culture, change our information field, leave the information field of the “russian world”, in which many of us existed”, – said Ekaterina Derman, an activist of the diaspora.
The speakers at the rally also remembered the political prisoners who were tortured to death in the prisons of Lukashenka.
