Freedom Day: “Belarusian Week” launched in Vilnius (Photo)
- 20.03.2012, 11:03
Yesterday the opening ceremony of the Belarusian Week took place in the building of Vilnius municipality.
The events started with the exhibition of a young Belarusian artist Tatsyana Dzyanisava called “Dreams and Reality.” According to Vilnius Mayor, this name is rather symbolic concerning the present situation in the neighbouring country, DELFI informs.
“I hope that independence and freedom in Belarus will become more than just a dream, but a reality,” Arturas Zuokas stated at the opening ceremony of the Belarusian Week, which is to be finished on March 25 by celebration of Freedom Day (the day of Belarusian independence 1918-2012).
The Mayor of Vilnius noted that he was very glad a former head of the Supreme Council of Belarus Stanislau Shushkevich was present. The previous weekend he was not allowed leaving Belarus for Lithuania, and he had to make a circle and drive through Russia into Lithuania, in order to get to Vilnius.
“I am very surprised. Yesterday I read the Belarusian authorities banned him from going abroad, and I am very happy he is here,” the Mayor of the Lithuanian capital said.
Representatives of embassies of European countries (Poland and the Czech Republic) attended the opening ceremony, as well as the Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Seimas Emanuelis Zingeris, Lithuanian Ambassador to Belarus Edminas Bagdonas, representatives of “European Belarus” civil campaign, the European Humanities University, the Belarusian expat community and Belarusians living in Lithuania, journalists.
A patriarch of the Belarusian politics S. Shushkevich in his turn made a joke that they are “almost relatives” with A. Zuokas: “I am not allowed to visit Lithuania, and you are not allowed to visit Belarus.”
We remind that in December 2011 Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas was denied a Belarusian visa.
S. Shushkevich expressed gratitude to the Lithuanian Ambassador to Belarus Edminas Bagdonas, saying that “by his work he demonstrated very well what a little country can do, when people want that.”
“Until we do not want it ourselves, and would not take actions as Lithuania had taken once, we would not become like them, (and they were in a worse situation that us), Belarus would not become a real Belarus,” he concluded his improvised speech.
The head of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs Emanuelis Zingeris in his conversation with DELFI reporter said about his attitude to the fact that the day of declaration of Belarusian independence is to be celebrated in Lithuania, not in Belarus: “A person is imprisoned for a white-red-white flag, he is at the point of death, and I think Belarusians have a massive support among Lithuanian intellectuals, who see the actions of the current regime as subjugation of the Belarusian nation.”
The Belarusian Week is to be held in Vilnius on March 19-25. It is organized by the democratic community of Lithuania with a support of Vilnius municipality.