Ales Bialiatski's voice was heard on Radio Svaboda for several decades in defense of democratic values ​​in Belarus.



In the book series "Library of Freedom.

The book "Bialyatsky on Freedom" is published in the XXI century.

Authoritative human rights defender, political prisoner, historian of Belarusian literature, one of the founders of the youth national-independence movement of the 1980s — Ales Bialiatski appears in this book in interviews and reports by Svaboda.

We publish fragments of the book.

"You wake up and think about the events in Ukraine"

I know for sure what kind of Ukraine would satisfy Russia and Putin - such as today's Belarus, not an independent political or economic dictatorship.

Such as Belarus, where the voice of the oppressed people is not heard and whose independence is ghostly and weak.



(From a speech at the Forum-2000 international conference in Prague, October 13, 2014).

In the colony, it happened that you would wake up at night and think about the events in Ukraine.



(In a conversation with journalists on the day of release, June 14, 2014).

"Refugees from Donbass do not have a positive attitude towards independent Belarus, independent Ukraine"

...Over the past two years, these are 160,000 refugees from Ukraine, mainly from the Donbass region, who brought certain views, a certain ideology.

This is a serious challenge for the entire Belarusian society, which we have not fully understood yet.



What do these people say to Belarusians?

What thoughts did they come with?

What did they bring to Belarusian society?

This requires research and a certain reaction from the Belarusian society.

... It is not necessary to draw any general conclusions, because, I emphasize, no one has conducted normal research in this group of refugees.

But according to the contacts that our human rights defenders have in the regions (and these people are scattered all over Belarus), if we talk about the mood that these people bring, they are even more significant than their number.



So, the mood there for democratic Belarus, for independent Belarus, is not positive.

After all, people came with a "scoop" psychology, a certain post-war shock, and many of them blame Ukraine and the events that took place in Kiev two years ago.

They brought anti-Ukrainian sentiments with them.

And the fact that they are in contact with other Belarusians who do not have objective information is a negative factor.

And no one works with them in this direction.



(Interview with Radio Svaboda, October 13, 2016).