Activist From Rahachou Renounces Belarusian Сitizenship In Protests

• 3.09.2023, 10:58

Previously, he was fined for a photo of Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Activist from Rahachou Dzianis Dashkevich renounced Belarusian citizenship and closed all his projects related to Belarus. He wrote about this on his Facebook page.

“Due to insurmountable circumstances, I am forced to announce the closure of all my projects related to the Republic of Belarus, including the Rahachou Online publication. I founded it in 2011. I also sent an official letter to the Lukashenka administration about the refusal of all state awards and titles. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus has received my request to renounce my Belarusian citizenship. I don't want to have anything more to do with my former country. I will try to implement my ideas in a new country,” Dzianis Dashkevich said.

Dziznis Dashkevich is a 38-year-old activist from. For more than ten years he has been running the regional resource Rogachev Online. The police filed a report against the activist for a photo of the President of Poland against the background of a flag similar to the White-Red-White flag. It turned out that the local idea-monger Natallia Prus denounced him. Actually, the flag in the picture has nothing to do with Belarus: there is a green stripe at the bottom and some sort of trees in the middle - this is the flag of Polish-Hungarian friendship.

Later it became known that a criminal case was initiated against Dzianis Dashkevich for this photo. The man learned this news from the Svabodnae Slova ("Free Word") local news publisher.

At the end of August, a man was fined 740 rubles for taking a photo with President Duda. Also, police confiscated the "offensive thing". He was tried in absentia, although he left Belarus almost a year ago. The security services visited his place in Rohachou several times.