Belarus - The continued persecution of a family

Belarus 2016. Books are powerful. A book about imprisonment, torture and the true incidents during the presidential campaign is not tolerated by the regime.

"At the checkpoint Privalka at the Belarus–Lithuania border, Belarusian customs officers seized five copies of the book "Belarusian Amerikanka, or Elections under Dictatorship" from Iryna Khalip, the wife of the former presidential candidate in the 2010 elections in Belarus, the leader of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Andrei Sannikov.



Iryna Khalip with her son Danya Sannikov was returning from her husband, who is forced to stay in immigration after the dictator's crackdown on political opponents in 2010."


Charter 97: "Books by Andrei Sannikov confiscated at the Belarusian border" (full text):
https://www.charter97.org/en/news/2016/11/8/230343/
"The customs officers said they intended to seize the book to get it "examined".

The book "My Story. Belarusian Amerikanka, or Elections under Dictatorship" was written by Andrei Sannikov in 2014.

It frankly and honestly describes the presidential campaign of 2010, The Square and the essence the Lukashenka regime."




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"Свобода -- это выпрыгнуть из клетки".  (Д. Санников:  "Frihet är att hoppa ut ur buren".)

"My main message is that freedom is indivisible. There's no freedom of assembly without freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is impossible without freedom of expression. You can't have free enterprise, without freedom of opinion. You can either have freedom in its entirety - or no freedom at all. But I think that freedom of expression is the most important." (Iryna Khalip; http://www.dw.com/en/prize-winner-khalip-freedom-is-indivisible/a-16370688)


"The word is not only immortal - it is free": 

"When in KGB prison where I was threatened that I would be imprisoned for 15 years during which time my son would be in an orphanage, because the same fate was prepared for my husband, I remembered the books of Alexander Solzhenitsin, Varlam Shalamov, Anatoly Rybakov who went through Soviet prisons and camps. So I  understood that in my country that bade farewell to the remnants of the Soviet Union 20 years ago nothing has changed.  That meant that all their methods are well known, I have read about it." (Iryna Khalip; http://www.charter97.org/en/news/2012/11/12/61286/)

Photo: KL