Filatov, who received a criminal case, denies that he violated the flag of Belarus
The mayor of Dnepropetrovsk, Boris Filatov, considers it absurd to accuse him of inciting ethnic hatred, in connection with which the General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus opened a criminal case against him.
According to a PolitNavigator correspondent, he stated this on air on TV channel 34, assessing the replacement of the national flag of Belarus at the Dnepropetrovsk mayor's office with a red and white one.
“Indeed, the General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus opened a criminal case against me - up to ten years in prison. They haven't put anyone on the wanted list yet. They accused me of inciting ethnic hatred. This can already be taken with laughter, because this is simply pure absurdity. The situation is very simple - in front of the city hall, within the framework of the participation budget, there are flagpoles that were installed by city youth and where the flags of national communities are hung.
And so the youth take these flags down and put them up, take them down and put them up. This is the participation budget. Taking into account the fact that in Belarus mayors are not only not elected, but are also appointed directly by the president, my Belarusian colleagues probably decided that it’s me who takes down the flags, raises them, and does what I want. But I won’t enter into any kind of showdown with them - well, they did it and did it, well, I’m already used to it.
In Russia I am under sanctions, although I have no property there; in Belarus there is a criminal case. We’ll survive,” the mayor said.
In 2019, as part of the city program, flags of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Greece, Georgia, Israel, Poland, Korea, Lithuania, Germany and the flag of the Crimean Tatars were installed at the Dnieper City Hall. Recently the red-green flag was replaced by white-red-white.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus explained that the Belarusian side perceived this as an outrage against the state symbol of Belarus.
“He is charged with inciting national hatred under Part 2 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. By desecrating our state symbol, he thereby humiliated the national honor and dignity of Belarusians,” commented a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus on TV channel 34.
Boris Filatov, for his part, advises Belarusian officials to “see the beam in their own eyes.”
“We'll see how they investigate. And secondly, you know, but this already sounds absurd, because the respected Mr. Lukashenko actually took the oath of office as president on a red and white flag. There are thousands of proofs of this. Then, however, they changed the flag, made it red and green, and removed the Soviet symbols from there, however. Therefore, this looks very funny in fact, not to mention the fact that when respected colleagues from the Prosecutor General’s Office talk about inciting ethnic hatred, then there is neither a subject nor an object.
Who is “he”, where did he “abuse”? Was he dragging or somehow filming? Let them do it, they are just bored, have nothing to do, especially again, I want to be very careful in my assessments so as not to offend the Belarusian people, but the statements that are now heard from officials addressed to our political community in general, our deputies, the President of Ukraine on the part of Belarusian officials - this is just some kind of swearing at the market. Therefore, let them not notice the speck in someone else’s eye, but let them see the log in themselves,” Filatov said.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.