Today the first wave of the people detained during the protest have been released as their sentences expired. More could be released during the night and later this week. In 2006 me and my friends were released at around 3 am after being detained for 10 days as a punishment for being in the vicinity of a protesting square. In the night of our release we were met by a huge crowd outside of the prison, who came to show their support to the arrested. They were calling us brave people and heroes and saying many nice things. The crowd was applauding to every person who was leaving the doors of the prison. That was a very touching moment, a kind of positive push back into the life after being detained without any information about what was going on in the country.
The same has been prepared for the arrested this year – our little tradition in Belarus! Continue reading…
Since the elections took place and the atmosphere of the 1930s in the USSR was brought back to Belarus most of us were in the state of shock close to stupor. The first thing that came to mind about “what to do now” has been – spread the information about what happened and is happening, because if things are not documented they are soon forgotten by the society and the traumas are left only with those directly affected, even though there are hundreds of them.
Therefore, Livejournal, Twitter and Facebook have been quite active to share the real time information about what is going on and what really happened at the square.
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This time New Year celebration cannot be as merry as we wanted; however, there is hope that 2011 will be better than 2010. Here are 5 topical New Year post cards which illustrate how we celebrate this New Year in Belarus. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Happy New Year!
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The first shock of the new reality in Belarus has started to wear out and people are starting to collect their thought together about how to live in this country now. GenerationBY team member is sharing his memories of the protest in Minsk on December 19, 2010.
Crowds of relatives and friends of the arrested waiting outside of Zhodina prison to pass them the necessities
“Happy Christmas? Not for Belarus”, – that is how Guardian’s journalist started his article about what happened in Belarus last week. And Belarusians did really forget about Christmas. It is impossible to enjoy the holidays at the same time when dozens of your friends are in jail. People are joking that the best of Belarusians have been jailed. Below is my personal recollection of those beautiful and at the same time disgusting hours of December protests in Minsk. Continue reading…
