On October 19th, 2013 a 5-day hunger strike of Mozyr oil refinery worker Yuri Shvets ended in Belarus. Yuri Shvets is the head of an independent trade union at the plant and it was because of the union claims to the management that he began a hunger strike.

The main reason for the strike was the pressure exerted on the members of the independent trade union. The independent trade union has been operating in the company since 1990. However, according to activists, with the establishment of state ideologists at the plant in 2008, the real pressure has started. Over the past five years more than 600 people left the union because of threats and intimidation. The final reason for the hunger strike was the dismissal of five activists of the independent trade union.

The hunger strike was held in an unusual format for Belarus. On every day of the hunger strike Yuri Shvets went to work at the plant from 8 to 6 p.m., however, after work hours he went back to his car which was parked near the company office, where he spent the night until the next business day. This way every employee of the plant at any time could come and see with his/her own eyes that their colleague from the independent trade union was really starving. Vassily Alhovsky had been a part of the strike together with Yuri Shvets for the first three days, but due to health problems he was later forced to stop the strike.

The situation in the field of human rights in Belarus has been drawing attention of the international community for a long time. Nevertheless, we were pleasantly surprised when a substantial amount of money appeared in our fundraising campaign account, which is dedicated to the support of people persecuted by Belarusian authorities. Even more astonishing was the fact, that the contribution was received from a young student of the Prague Archbishop High School - Tereza Reichelová.

Tereza has won the Vaclav Havel Library competition for the best student essay on the topic: “How do you envision the future Czech president?”

The award in the amount of 15,000 CZK (600 EURO), that Tereza received, was donated to the fundraising campaign for the support of victims of political repressions in Belarus. Tereza’s deed was a great delight to us. Please find a short interview with her below:

Civic Belarus: What made you decide to donate the award money for winning a literary competition to support Belarusian dissidents?

Tereza Reichelová: Specifically Viasna was a coincidence, shortly before that Lukashenko’s regime had confiscated their office. I did not count on this money and so it eventually seemed to be a logical step.

I am not sure why I began to follow the events in Eastern Europe. I do not remember. When I think about this, I find a variety of arguments as to why I would be seriously interested in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, but it is rather a result of a rationalization than remembering. Although, I think, Petra Procházková played some part in this.

What do you think of when you say Eastern Europe? What is your relation to it?

Regionally, I think of Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia; and countries that experienced Soviet communism, which, similarly to the Central Europe, are trying to define themselves in the democratic world after the Cold War. A boundary between Eastern and Central Europe is for me, probably, determined by what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s.

I have certain relation to Eastern Europe - how to say - not on the personal level, where I would have family or friends there. Rather, I feel that we as the Czech Republic, and possibly the whole of Central Europe, are bound to it through a certain part of our culture today. Twenty years after, it appears that the "revolution" and the "break with the communist past" are not so easy, and, I think, that we (now I think of my post-Communist generation) are a little tempted to cut off communism along with our Eastern “neighbors” and copy the West as quickly as possible without having a social base for its institutions. We are also searching for a national identity, the same as Eastern Europe, and it is more honest to include unpleasant experience and history in this identity, rather than ignore it and try to pretend it has never happened, and think that our democracy is as well developed as in England and that we can just take it over and everything will be great. All these comparisons between the Czech and the British Parliament, the Czech and the USA media do not make sense; Eastern Europe is for me personally the main area that needs to be taken into account if we want to find out who we are and what we have to do.

In the middle of this year, it became fully evident that the criminalisation of the Belarusian opposition and the civil society sector persists. The latest case is the sentencing of Andrei Haidukou to 18 months’ imprisonment on 1 July.

The case began at the beginning of November 2012, when Andrei Haidukou, deputy chairman of the Union of Young Intellectuals, was arrested in Vitebsk. Until then, 23-year-old Andrei had worked as a manual labourer at the company Naftan.

Belarusian authorities immediately alleged that the arrest was made when Haidukou attempted to pass information to an unspecified foreign intelligence service.  Since then, he has been in the Belarusian KGB’s investigative cells, and more detailed information about the charges against him has not been known. The young activist was initially charged with treason, which carried a penalty of up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Belarusian authorities later reclassified the charge as ‘attempting to establish contact with foreign intelligence services’. 

The trial began in June 2013, and was held in secret despite requests from the public and human rights organisations. Only the verdict was read publicly. Throughout the proceeding, Haidukou’s contact with his attorney was restricted, and it was only during the trial – after eight months’ confinement – that he saw his mother, who testified as a witness. 

The course of the trial, the verdict and the sentence itself immediately became the subject of criticism. For example, the human rights organisation Viasna, whose president, Ales Bialiatski, is himself a political prisoner, issued a joint statement with the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (http://spring96.org/ru/news/64190) sharply criticising the trial and demanding Haidukou’s release in view of the unsubstantiated charges and the political subtext of the case.

Statement on the Ice Hockey World Championship incident

This year’s World Ice Hockey Championship in Stockholm, Sweden has seen its first incident. During the match between Belarus and Czech Republic, the red-and-white flag, the traditional symbol of the independent Republic of Belarus, was seen among the Belarus fans dominating over the current red-and-green flag introduced by the Lukashenko regime in 1995, which harks back to the Soviet era.

On 5 May the flag of independent Belarus was officially banned from ice hockey matches by the Championship organisers and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).

“The red-and-white flag is a traditional symbol of Belarus. By banning it, the Championship organisers are clearly siding with the current Belarusian regime which, in my opinion, should not be accepted in 21st century Europe because of its oppressive nature”, said Petruska Sustrova, Chairman of the Board of the International Association Civic Belarus.

Besides other things, it is worrying that this is happening just one year before the Minsk 2014 World Championship, which will be hosted by Belarus. This trend justifiably raises concerns over whether the 2014 ice hockey championship will be held under the full force of the Lukashenko regime’s propaganda.

Petition for support of traditional Belarusian symbols to be used at the hockey championship can be signed here.

The organization Solidarity with Belarus has recently announced the results of the second year of competition for the best newspaper article about Belarus. The competition received 60 articles from 36 journalists from 16 countries all over the world – from Indonesia to Germany, Costa Rica to Romania. The most articles were sent by journalists from Belarus, the United Kingdom, and Poland. 

The international panel of judges looked for analytical articles that attempted to take a fresh approach to Belarus - a country commonly labeled as ‘the last dictatorship of Europe’. All articles had been written for an audience outside of Belarus. 

The first place was awarded to Michal Potocki (Poland) for his summarizing article ‘Split Personality Intersection’ published in the Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, which vividly describes the problems that modern Belarusian society is facing.

Laurent Vinatier (France) received the second prize for ‘A Dictatorship’s Success Stories’ published in The Global Journal. The author of this original article deals with the position of business in Belarus, providing a few very interesting examples.

The third prize went to the article devoted to the situation of political prisoners. Belarusian journalist and editor of a leading Belarusian language newspaper ‘Nasha Niva’, Andrej Dynko, Europe’s Last Dictatorship, The New York Times. 

More information and a list of all entries can be viewed on the website of the competition.