EU sanctions against members of the Lukashenka regime must be expanded, Karin Karlsbro, a representative of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Belarus, told Belsat. The West will not ignore the calls made by the state media, namely – to finally resolve the issue of protesters in one night – according to the Hitler model.
Belarus needs to be put in order according to German standards – this is a call made the other day on the state-run TV channel CTV. News presenter Alyaksei Holikau, who calls himself a supporter of undemocratic force, recalled how the Nazi military acted in the occupied territories: gallows against thefts in the fields and executions of people without tickets.
“Tickets were bought by all but one woman and her granddaughter. They were taken off the train and shot in front of everyone right on the slope,” the CTV presenter said.
Formerly a pro-Lukashenka video blogger, a participant in provocations against the opposition, and now an employee of the state media, Holikau calls the protesters ‘animals’ and ‘hoofed animals to boot’:
“A young individual breaks the car of security officers with his hooves. The 50-year-old stoops to the level of a teenager and publicly swears.”
Holikau justifies both torture and harsh conditions in Akrestsin Street remand prison:
“Such conditions are unacceptable for people, and completely fine for animals. Cattle eat food in one corner and defecate in the other.”
Dehumanisation of the enemy is a tool of information war and dangerous political propaganda, reminds media expert Paulyuk Bykouski:
“The example of genocide caused by the fact that part of the population was called cockroaches and urged to be killed springs to mind.”
We are talking about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where the propaganda “Radio of a Thousand Hills” (RTLM) played a significant role. The Jews were called animals and inferior people by Hitler’s propagandists to justify the deprivation of their rights, followed by the Holocaust and the construction of concentration and death camps.
A term ‘hoofed’ in relation to the protesters was earlier used by Mikalai Karpyankou to instruct subordinates. He is now Deputy Interior Minister.
“The order was to create a camp, not for prisoners of war, not for internees, but a camp for especially hoofed individuals, for resettlement,” Mikalai Karpyankou recounted the results of the meeting with Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
The examination confirmed that it was indeed Karpyankou’s voice. Urgently built camps for opposition activists were discovered near Slutsk, near Barysau. The testimonies came from the protesters kept there.
In 1995, at the beginning of his career, Alyaksandr Lukashenka spoke about the positive sides of Hitler’s rule in an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt. A few years later, he called the record a fake:
“There were not only bad things connected with the notorious Adolf Hitler in Germany. The German order was formed over the centuries, under Hitler this formation reached its highest point. This is in line with our understanding of the presidential republic and the role of the president in it,” Lukashenka said in an interview with the Germans.
And what do citizens think about the calls of state television to act according to the methods of the Germans?
Here is what Minskers say:
“We went through this in the 1940s.”
“I remember my uncle crying when he told me all this. And I can’t forget that. How can you say that? Maybe he didn’t have such an uncle.”
“Order must be kept, but in human ways. Not in ways used by dictators, not resorting to genocide.”
“It is impossible in Belarus, and let them not hope for it in principle. We just won’t give up this easily. “
“While in August and September, the state media still tried to notice political dissidents, now, in fact, the media serves as part of the propaganda machine,” media expert Paulyuk Bykouski notes.
The European Union is closely monitoring the actions of Lukashenka’s political regime.
“What we hear coming from Belarus, including about historical views on Nazi Germany, worries us a lot. And in terms of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the ability to work as a journalist — these are the basic requirements! Journalism has been made a crime in Belarus,” Karin Karlsbro, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament delegation for relations with Belarus, told Belsat.
The representative of the European Parliament agrees that the EU sanctions against Lukashenka’s entourage should be strengthened and expanded:
“Something is in our power. Not everything, of course. We can strengthen sanctions, we can support the legitimately elected government, politicians from the Coordination Council.”
The actions of the European Union will depend on how events develop in Belarus, she told Belsat.
Yaraslau Stseshyk, Belsat
