Sportsmen and politicians urged to boycott Ice Hockey World Championship

Hundreds opposition activists may be thrown in prisons before the Ice Hockey World Championship.

The opinion was expressed by participants of the press-conference “Do not play with dictator” that took place today in Warsaw. A coordinator of the European Belarus civic campaign and former political prisoner Dzmitry Bandarenka, one of the leaders of Russian opposition Boris Nemtsov, TVP journalist and the author of the Studio Wschód TV show Maria Przelomiec and a professor, expert and diplomat Viktor Ross took part in the press-conference.

The press-conference was organized by the office of an MEP Marek Migalski, who made a greeting address, a charter97.org’s correspondent reports.

“It seems to me that our conference is to a certain extent is a part or a consequence of the Vilnius summit. From time to time some things start changing in this world. We can notice that the West loses to Vladimir Putin in the fight for the Eastern Partnership countries. Most of them distance from Europe and get closer to the Kremlin. We can observe the West’s indifference here, as well as the indifference of sporting organizations, which dictators use.

I am talking about Russia’s situation, the elections in which were twice found unfree by the European Parliament. We are now cooperating with a person, who was not elected democratically and we admitted that. We let him hold international sporting events. The same goes for Lukashenka, even to a larger extent”, - Marek Migalski said.

Boris Nemtsov called “Russia’s enemies” those, who spent a huge amount of money for preparing and organizing the Olympics. The politician named the amount, which, according to him, will “Putin’s petty tyranny” cost.

“Our report “Winter Olympics in the subtropics” stated that 50 billion dollars were spent on the event. The amount has gone obsolete. My assessment: 60 billion dollars were spent on it. The amount is greater than the cost of all the humanity’s winter Olympics. You know, that it will be held for the 22nd time in Sochi. It was first held in France in 1924. The cost of all these Olympics is lower than the one in Sochi.

All the facilities, constructed for winter Olympics in different countries are identical. We compared the price of the facilities built by Putin’s friends to the cost of the facilities, built for previous Olympics. The average price of the facilities, constructed in Sochi, is three times higher than the world’s while these were built by guest workers from Central Asia – Tajiks, Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz”, - Boris Nemtsov claimed.

The politician urged Western leaders not to come to the Olympics in the case the Russian authorities do not release the political prisoners.

The coordinator of the European Belarus civic campaign, former political prisoner Dzmitry Bandarenka told about the situation in Belarus and explained, why not only Western politicians, but also sportsmen should not come to the Ice Hockey World Championship.

“Repressions in Belarus were aimed at different layers of the society. Yesterday we learnt that two vice-presidents of the National Olympics Committee were arrested and put in KGB jail. These are Lukashenka’s allies, members of the Shklou-Mahilou clan. They were released, but if National Olympics Committee’s vice-presidents get imprisoned, are there guarantees for the International Olympics Committee, for example? There is such a notion in all the countries as “governmental guarantees”. Recently a major Russian manager was invited to Belarus – Uralkali’s director general Vladislav Baumgertner. He was invited personally by Belarus’ Prime-Minster. The negotiations went not like the Belarusian party would want to, and Mr. Baumgertner stayed in Minsk for two and a half months. He spent them in KGB jail. So welcome to Belarus, everyone.

Of course, any dictator, starting from Hitler, uses sports for political purposes. Only democratic countries and activists cannot use sports for the purpose of human rights protection.

I urge hockey players of the world not to come to Belarus. Most of you will have been to the Olympics in Sochi by the time. You should better rest and not come to Belarus for the championship. I especially address NHL players: your coming will be used for preventively arrest and imprison for half a month hundreds activists so that you do not see them. Thousands of people will be evicted from Minsk, like in Soviet times, because their looks are not okay with the dictator for some reason.

There are labour camps in Belarus. These are concentration camps, where a person may get if a district policeman makes two papers saying that he saw him drunk at some point. On their basis the court sends the person to a labour camp as a slave. I am afraid that the number of such institutions will only increase before the hockey tournament”, - he claimed.

The politician does not agree with the statement that holding the tournament will contribute to Belarus’ democratization.

“I recently spoke with Azerbaijani human rights activists. They told about their impressions of the Eurovision competition in Baku. The Swedish singer raised the human rights topic, but after that Aliev became absolutely welcome, and the number of political prisoners in the country doubled.

Western political leaders should not come to the Ice Hockey World Championship. I do not really believe that a sporting boycott will take place, but event may take place, that the international hockey management may take the decision not to come to Belarus. I urge sportsmen and politicians: do not come and participate in the tournament, be honest and decent people, do not support the dictatorship financially”, - Dzmitry Bandarenka claimed.