No flags, no slogans, near KGB. Opposition to honour memory of Belarusians executed in Stalin era
Mikalai Statkevich, a former political prisoner and presidential candidate, is calling for honouring the memory of the Belarusian cultural figures executed by Stalinists in 1937.
“80 years ago, in the early hours of October 29, 1937, more than 130 Belarusian poets, writers, publicists were executed in the inner prison of the NKVD in Minsk. They were the soul of the nation. The Night of The Executed Poets has become a symbol of the Stalinist purges, in the course of which hundreds of thousands of Belarusians were repressed.
I am calling on everyone who remembers and respects them to participate in a traditional Remembrance Chain near the place of the mass murder of the Belarusian cultural elite. If we fail to openly and publicly condemn the former or current crimes of the authorities, we actually live with them.
The start is at 19.00 near the KGB building on Sunday, October 29th on Independence Avenue in Minsk. No flags,no slogans. After all, the killed were under different flags, they were inspired by various slogans. Take only candles or lamps. We will come to remember our dead near the place of the execution so that the descendants of the executioners would know that nothing will be forgotten,” the politician said on Facebook.
