What phrases are Regnum authors standing trial for?
Regnum authors on trial in a Minsk court. TUT.BY image
The Minsk City Court is reviewing the following words from Sergei Shiptenko's article "Tough consequences of soft Belarusization":
"Kirill of Turov has been described as a Belarusian thinker. Euphrosyne of Polack has been declared a Belarusian. The Polish composer Mikhail Oginski has been named a Belarusian."
"In Belarus, everything Russian is consisently being destroyed."
"Belarusization has been imposed by a small circle of people."
"In the Soviet Union, the Belarusian language was maintained artificially."
"In the Belarusian language, not all words are sufficient to express yourself."
Dmitry Alimkin in his article "Belarusian language. By hook or by crook" writes about Belarusian children whose 'brain will be spoilt for ever' by Belarusian language lessons. Alimkin describes the Belarusian language as a 'Russian dialect' and uses the phrases as follows:
"As of today, there is no demand for the Belarusian language. For those who do not know, Belarusian is only used by radio presenters."
"People resiliently refuse from letting their children study in Belarusian-language classes."
"Only oppositionists use the Belarusian language."
"An absolute majority of Belarusians wants to unite with its historical motherland - Russia."
"The Belarusian language has no chances anyway."
"Stalin thrashed nationalists and stopped Belarusization."
Here is the opinion of experts from the National Experts Commission under the Ministry of Informatiom, which identified attempts to instigate ethnic hostility in each of the mentioned articles:
"...define the history of Belarus as a myth, and the Belarusian language as a dead tongue, targeting the Russian audience in order to shape hostile attitude to Belarusians as a foreign group, degrading their significance and discriminating them.
...describe the current policy of Belarusian authorities as anti-Russian, aiming to discriminate the Russian-language speaking population of Belarus and pro-Russian citizens. They create the feeling of outrage towards the authorities of Belarus by Russian readers. Among Belarusian citizens they create the feeling of indignation at the persons who carry out information policy with regard to Belarusians. This may trigger a conflict on the national and inter-ethnic level."
Lawyer Aleh Aheyeu from Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) says it is yet to be known what methodological tools the experts commission used to identify the instigation of inter-ethnic hostility. However, the so called language of hatred is definitely visible:
"One may not agree with these phrases but according to numerous methodologies they can be recognized as the language of hatred. From the perspective of the instigation of inter-ethnic hostility in these phrases, we can only talk about it only after we learn the methodology used. To me, the language of hatred is obvious but the instigation of inter-ethnic hostility is not."