A criminal case was opened against the mayor of Dnepr in Belarus
The General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus opened a criminal case against the mayor of Dnepropetrovsk (new name Dnepr) Boris Filatov for desecration of the Belarusian flag.
The reason for the excitement was that Filatov ordered to replace the state flag of Belarus in front of the City Council building with the white and red flag of Belarusian nationalists.
Filatov himself made the incident public, bragging about replacing the flag on his Facebook, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We are local self-government and do not meddle in politics and foreign affairs of the state, but simply cannot interfere with the position of our citizens,” he wrote.
However, Belarusians living in Ukraine were dissatisfied with Filatov’s arbitrariness. The head of the Belarusian community “Syabry-Volyn”, Mikhail Kononovich, in his video message called the red and white flag “Nazi”, and the act of the mayor of Dnepropetrovsk as a “dirty provocation”.
“I have a question as an ethnic Belarusian who has lived all his life in Ukraine. You claim that Belarusians approached you with a request to remove this flag. I have a question: the first and last name of the person who contacted you. Written evidence of this appeal. Everything you say is about nothing. As President Lukashenko says: facts are on the table. And the second question: who do you work for, mayor of Dnepropetrovsk. Why do you need this provocation? Who is behind it?” Kononovich said.
Now in Belarus Filatov is charged with inciting national hatred.
“It was established that the suspect, being an official, organized the removal of the national symbol of the Republic of Belarus - the state flag placed at the entrance to the city council building, and replacing it with a white-red-white banner. By desecrating our national symbol, he thereby humiliated the honor and national dignity of Belarusians,” said Anzhelika Kurchak, official representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus.
Filatov unsubscribed again on Facebook.
“You see, we live in a free country. Therefore, when local youth, using the participation budget, installed flagpoles with flags of national communities at the city hall, they have the right to change these flags as they please. Moreover, unlike Nazi and communist symbols, the white-red-white flag is not prohibited in Ukraine. Although you probably won’t understand this for sure. Neither in Russia, nor in Belarus,” the Dnieper mayor said rudely.
In Belarus, red and white symbols were considered radical after they were used by Belomaidan participants in 2020. Belarusians themselves like the state flag more than the national flag. This is evidenced by data from a social study by the British Institute Chatham House. 49% of respondents were in favor of the red-green Soviet flag, and 26% were in favor of the bchb.
“Have we taken down the Ukrainian flag somewhere? Did you hang the flag of the Ukrainian SSR? What do you allow yourself? How can you disrespect the country and people so much?” the leader of the Belarusian Liberal Democratic Party Oleg Gaidukevich was indignant on Sputnik radio.
Ukrainian Ambassador Igor Kizim was summoned to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry. He was warned that in case of failure to comply with the demands voiced at the meeting, the Belarusian side reserves the right to take further proportionate steps.
“It was brought to the attention of the Ukrainian side that in Belarus they consider this cynical manifestation of an unfriendly attitude towards a sovereign nation as an act of state vandalism, flagrantly violating the fundamental principles of international law - the principle of sovereign equality of states and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states - as well as the norms of international relations accepted in the civilized world, diplomatic and protocol practice,” said the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
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