Political animations that feature a person who resembles Aliaxadr Lukashenka caused the authorities to launch criminal proceedings. KGB accuses the authors of insulting the President (which is against the law). (22-AUG-05)
KGB agents have already searched the apartments of the members of the civil initiative “Third Way” composed of university students, including Aliaxei Abozau and Paval Marozau. They were summonsed by the KGB investigator Niestsiarovich for interrogation. As a result, twelve computers, dozens of disks and other media were confiscated. Criminal proceedings were instituted, the animation authors are suspected of having insulted Aliaxandr Lukashenka.
The students created an “Animation Club” and released their short flash animations via the Internet. The animations features caricatured images of the country?s leaders, opposition activists and common people and, obviously, the animations all centered around a political topic. The students said they knew they had been watched, their mail had been read, however, the searches and then interrogations and the criminal action came quite unexpected.
The club members said that in all countries animations released via the Internet are very popular, however, so far no one had thought of bringing a criminal action against the authors of numerous political cartoons. Paval Marozau, a Club member, who gave evidence in KGB, commented: “When the animation character that looks like Aliaxandr Lukashenka quotes parts of his speeches and acts like him and this causes people to laugh, so why then does KGB not visit the Belarusian State TV Company? They show much more to illustrate the life of the president. We all know that even without animations the people often laugh at what he says”.
The possible author of the animations has submitted a written undertaking not to leave the city.
