Nikolai Markevich Greets People’s March Protesters :: Charter'97 :: News

I welcome the participants of the People’s March “For Better Life!”. I’m proud of all my countrymen who find enough courage and personal will to uphold the nation’s natural demands of decent life for themselves and their children in these dark times of the agonizing criminal and anti-national regime.

Only he deserves better life, who goes for it and struggles by all means available. However, as we care about our own welfare we should never forget about the innocent victims of Lukashenko’s regime – correspondent of the banned newspaper “Pagonya” Pavel Mozheiko and editor-in-chief of the “Rabochy” newspaper Viktor Ivashevich. Under Lukashenko’s court’s verdict they cannot freely move around, being obliged to dwell in awful, unbearable conditions amidst criminals simply because these courageous men spoke the words of truth, fulfilled their professional duty and objectively informed the society.

A country can’t be really free and affluent if it doesn’t respect the freedom of speech, persecutes and punishes people for their convictions. So none of us can really be free and rich until there exist political prisoners in the country. So I call on the March’s participants to demand immediate release of the prisoners of conscience – journalists Pavel Mozheiko and Viktor Ivashkevich. For the sake of good life! For the sake of good and justice! For the sake of humanism!

To your and our freedom!

Editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Pagonya”, banned by the state
Nikolai Markevich