The picket lasted for 20 minutes. BRSM youth (the Belarusian Republican Youth Union was created in 2002 copying traditions and structure of the Soviet youth organisation Komsomol – Communist Youth Union) held posters with sonorous slogans “They won and you are lying” and “Is it really People’s? Is it really Will?” (a word play on the newspaper title – Narodnaja Vola translates into English as People’s Will).
Protesters announced that recent paper’s article dedicated to WW2 was the reason for them to come up together and express their dissatisfaction. They considered a view of the article author as demining and offensive. That was why they felt that they needed to protect ‘true memories’ of veterans.
Youngsters were giving out to passers-by copies of the ideologically pristine Memory (book series sponsored by the state to support the mainstream WW2 history) and leaflets with calls to “freshen up memory.”
The Narodnaja Vola editorial office has recently become a popular spot for staging protests and pickets. Likewise, on 6 April angry veterans, who are considered to be strong and very vocal supporters of the current regime, converged on that exact place. The reason was the same – disrespectful and offensive coverage of WW2 in the paper. That time veterans’ anger was triggered by reprinted extracts from Illia Kopyl’s book Niabyšyna. The war. The author gave his subjective view and assessment of WW2 events in his life; he also disproved several widespread war myths.
Veterans were holding signs: “No to lies in mass media,” “Down with Nazism,” “We won enemies and we’ll win slanderers.” According to newspaper employees veterans were escorted and ushered by young people with video cameras, who also checked out their attendance. Reportedly, the protest was authorized by the Minsk city municipality. Protesters were rather aggressive. After the picket was over, they entered paper’s office accusing reporters and employees of lies and insults allegedly inflicted by their articles. They demanded to see the editor-in-chief but he was not there at the time.
Sviatlana Kalinkina (on photo), the chief-editor, came out to talk and hear out angered veterans. In her opinion, all these recent ‘protests’ were a new form of pressure on independent mass media, which had experienced harassments not long ago, ahead of the local and municipal election on 25 April. “There hasn’t been any political campaign in Belarus without attacks on independent media. The state authorities would like to use other people to meet the goal, preparing the public opinion for the idea of possible closure of newspapers and web based news sources. The accident is really alarming, as fellow-citizens are set at loggerheads and no good will come out of it,” the journalist added.
