Mirosław Dębiński: “Actions of Belarusian authorities resemble Nazi Germany”

Director of documentary film A Lesson of Belarusian Mirosław Dębiński was shocked to learn that his film had been recognised extremist material and must be destroyed.

“When I learnt that my film was found extremist, I was shocked. I made it for public run and hoped for journalists’ reviews, for evaluation of judges of film festivals, but not for evaluation in courts,” Mirosław Dębiński told to the press service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

“As I understand, all copies of the film, found in Belarus must be destroyed. Frankly speaking, it is resembles not democracy, but events near Reichstag in Nazi Germany, were books were burnt. As far as I understand, my film is not the only information material recognised as extremist...”

Mirosław Dębiński added that A Lesson of Belarusian got 17 awards at different European film festivals. The film is about life of students of closed Belarusian Humanities Lyceum named after Yakub Kolas, their participation in political life of the country, which peak was the presidential elections of 2006 and protests after the elections.

It has become known recently that 6 CDs with Polish documentary film A Lesson of Belarusian, 3 disks with recordings of "Solidarity with Belarus" concert in Warsaw in 2006 and 7 discs with photos from Kastrychnitskaya (October) Square in Minsk on the day of the presidential elections of 2006 were recognised extremist materials.

This information was published in “Zvyazda” newspaper on October 2. According to the newspaper, the decision on recognition of those CDs as extremist was made by Kastrychnitski District Court of Hrodna, the decision came into force on 16 September.

Earlier, on September 9, the court of Iyue district (the Hrodna region) recognised an August issue of unregistered “Svaboda” newspaper (№ 127 за 14–27.08.2008) extremist and ordered to destroy 5.000 copies of the newspaper. A civil case was instigated on the ground of a statement, signed on September 4 by Ihar Syarheenka, head of the KGB department of the Hrodna Region. The KGB found suspicious an article “War in Georgia”, contained in the newspaper.

The same I. Syarheenka initiated a civil procedure in Hrodna on recognition extremist a number of other materials, confiscated by Belarusian customs officers during the last three years, namely an issue of a newspaper of Belarusian Poles Glos znad Niemna na Uchodzstwie, a book "Chro¬nicles of Human Rights Violations in Belarus in 2004", recordings of Polish radio’s programmes, printouts of "The Basics of United Democratic Forces Strategy" and "Draft Resolution of Democratic Forces Congress",

"Svabodnaja Dumka" newsletter, books "Letters from the Forest" by Paval Sevyarynets, "An Accidental President" by Sviatlana Kalinkina and Pavel Sharamet, and other materials. The trial is to begin in the Kastrychnitski district court this month.