The situation in Belarus continues to deteriorate. The repression is massive, on some days over 1,000 protesters were arrested and mistreated in custody. Women are raped, activists disappear. In mid-November, it became known that a protester had apparently been beaten to death by Belarusian security forces. Nevertheless, the courage and activities of the Belarusian protest movement seem unbroken. The non-violent protests against President Alexander Lukashenko and the demands for new elections are not getting any quieter. However, the deliberately non-violent character of these protests has so far rarely been addressed in Western media.
This was the topic of a web seminar on December 17, 2020, organized by the Federation for Social Defence., gewaltfrei handeln e.V., Sozialer Friedensdienst Bremen e.V. and the Foundation Threshold
Olga Karatch (Nash Dom Civil Rights Network, Minsk) spoke about the situation and goals of the movement; Dr, Ute Finckh-Krämer (Bund für Soziale Verteidigung, Berlin), Dr. Jan-Philipp Wölbern (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin) and Jørgen Johansen (editor of Resistance Studies, Sparsnäs/Sweden) gave short assessments and discussed with Olga Karatch. The presentations of two speakers (Olga Karatch and Jörgen Johansen) were in English language. Link: https://youtu.be/XQhTd3Ai5Ts
Olga Karatch’s talk can be read in English below.
Bund für Soziale Verteidigung e.V.
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