The Belarusian Leninski territory Court in Grodno considered the website and profiles of “Sunday Guest” as extremist materials, and the information was sent on 22 August to the list of the Ministry of Information. It is censorship directed at the Polish Catholic word, the memory of Andrzej Poschobut and the evidence of the Church under force from the regime.
The court in Grodno hit a Catholic weekly
The Belarusian Leninski territory Court of Grodno considered the online activity of the "Sunday Guest" as extremist materials. As he stated Polsat News behind Euroradi, the decision appeared in the updated list of the Belarusian Ministry of Information. The list included the weekly website and its social media profiles.
A dispute over the media would be besides mild a description. This is simply a state effort to cut off Belarusians and Poles in Belarus from the vote, which he wrote about political prisoners, Polish clergymen and repressions of the Alaksandra Lukashenko regime. Minsk calls extremism what he fears most: memory, religion and an independent word.
Hohobut, Priests, and Uncomfortable Testimony
According to the study of Euroradia, recalled by the Polish media, “The Sunday Guest” published material concerning Belarus, including texts on Andrzej Poczoput, interviews with erstwhile political prisoners and articles on the expulsion of Polish Catholic priests from the country. Virtual Belarus She besides pointed out that the weekly wrote about the situation of the Catholic Church and the Polish number under Lukashenko.
It was adequate for the government to run its description camera. In Minsk's logic, extremism is not destroying communities, prison of oppositionists or pushing out clergymen. It is becoming utmost to describe these facts. Therefore, the issue of the “Sunday Guest” besides concerns the Polish reason for the state: without the right to remember and the words Poles in the East are left alone against the force of the state.
List banned as fear tool
The Belarusian list of extremist materials has been utilized for years to gag media, civics and independent voices. Polsat News reminds that it was previously visited by the resources of the Polish Press Agency, Russian-language BBC service, Euronews and Voice of America. The scale is clear: the government wants to control its own press and abroad sources of information.
In practice, specified a decision may entail a hazard to those who distribute the applicable material in Belarus. Virtual Belarus reported that administrative work may be threatened, and in any cases besides criminal. It's a classical intimidation mechanism. The citizen is to stay silent and be afraid to even make the text available.
Church and Polishness under force Minsk
The “Sunday Guest” has been published since 1923 and belongs to the most crucial Polish Catholic weekly. The impact on specified a title has a symbolic dimension. The Lukashenko government sends a signal to Catholics, Poles and all groups who remember political prisoners: any voice outside the state communicative can be called the enemy.
The National diary had previously written about Andrzej Pochobut's words that In Grodno is his home. This attitude shows well why Minsk is afraid of rooted people. Polishism in the Borderlands is not a folklore for the government to decorate. It is simply a surviving community that cannot be easy broken by an administrative stamp.
Polish answer: memory, support, pressure
Warsaw cannot treat this case as another point in the calendar of repression. There is simply a request for consistent defence of Polish media, clergy and activists in Belarus, support for repressed families and global force where it is inactive effective. Minsk understands strength, cost and isolation. He doesn't realize polite sighs.
The stakes for Poles are clear. If the government can ban the Catholic weekly unpunished for writing about Poschobut and Polish priests, next day it will hit the next channels of memory. The Polish state must hold its countrymen's side and its tradition. Without this, the word "solidarity" is just a slogan from the celebration.
Source: Polsat News, Virtual Poland, Virtual Belarus.
Source: Polsat News
