In Krasnoyarsk, Russia, goths and emos are protesting the laws banning piercing, black-pink clothing and hair styles. Last Saturday, about 150 youngsters demanded that the Russian Duma should rather work on more serious things than try to control youth self-expression.

I am writing these lines from a predominantly Catholic country, Lithuania, which enjoys not just a plethora of beautiful medieval churches and their respectful congregations. But it has a very strong youth rock and goth subcultures, the representatives of which often base their belief systems on something other than Catholicism and Christianity. Some local headbangers and goths adhere to Nietzschean nihilism, Satanism, or atheism, but it seems to me that the majority seek spiritual accord with the heathen faith of their forefathers. Lithuania, last Christianized in Europe, is a fertile soil for Pagan revival. Rasos Svente, a Pagan holiday of love, is a national holiday. Romuva, a Pagan church, is officially registered. There are festivals celebrating the pagan heritage. There are rock and metal bands mingling hard guitar riffs with authentic bagpipes. Yes, folks, Lithuania prides itself in its pre-Christian tradition.

Hence, even though the dressed-in-black teens may freak out local conservatives, nobody is seriously trying to shut them down in any way. Of course, Lithuanian authorities go harsh on some intolerant rightwing groups propagating neo-Nazi ideas, but seriously… these groups are not as well-spotted here than in Russia, where some extreme nationalists infiltrated even the popular political parties.

Here’s my stance. I believe that intolerance and extremism is one thing, it should be dealt with and decisively acted upon. But let us not confuse youth self-expression with extremism.

Belarus is a good example where the most harmless youth groups are taken for some bad guys which pose some threat either to the population (that’s the officially circulated pretense) or to the regime (this pretense is not publicly spoken about but is a more probable one). An example is the Belarusian Christian Democracy. This informal group united under Christian principles and plans to register as a political party. Their leader, Paval Sieviaryniec, is one of the most charismatic young politicians in Belarus, an ex-chair of Malady Front (Young Front) and a true believer.

I am writing about this, as one of my colleagues and coauthors of westki.info, Kastus Shytal, was recently detained twice as he visited a gathering of Catholic youth and distributed there a Christian youth newspaper “Pramien” (Sun Beam). He serves on the constituent committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy and is surely on a black list in his home region of Dokshytsy.

Here’s what happens. Russian goths and emos are protesting against the creeping totalitarianism in Russia, demanding freedom of self-expression. Meanwhile, Belarusian Christians get arrested for attempts to express their views freely.

Totally different is life in Vilnius, Lithuania. Christians and goths alike can enjoy the greatness of democracy in action. Some Christians and heathens may be not quite amicable toward one another, but they can peacefully coexist. And this is the virtue of freedom.

As expected, the Belarusian authorities used the terror act as a pretense for further intimidation of the Belarusian opposition. The KGB arrested four members of an organization “Biely Lehijon” (White Legion), which has long been nonexistent. For several years, there were no reports on any activities of the group. Moreover, many regional activists of diverse opposition structures are now being summoned to the police for interrogation.

Another outcome of the blast is that Alexandar Lukashenka fired Viktar Sheiman, the State Secretary of the Defense Council, and Gennady Nevyglas, the head of the Presidential Administration. A few days earlier, he criticized both for inactivity during the incident.

Sheiman was one of the most devoted and trusted confidants of the Belarusian president. He was side by side with Lukashenka from day one, and his resignation leaves analysts guessing what black cat has run between the old friends. Nevyglas, by the way, was a man of Sheiman, and seems like Lukashenka decided to make sure this power brunch in his close milieu is safely cut off.

On July 3, Minsk celebrated the “official” Independence Day. Hundreds of thousands gathered for a late-night concert at a local war memorial. The president himself was there.

After midnight, the unheard of happened. A bomb exploded injuring at least 50 people. Strangely, the president, who was not far away, was not taken to safety by the security forces. To the contrary, he appeared at the site of the bombing within minutes. Strangely, the concert was not stopped and the festivities continued, even though another explosive device was found by the police.

The opposition unanimously condemned this act of terror and called upon the authorities to conduct fair and open investigation. The opposition expressed hope that the explosion would not result in a new wave of repressions against the opposition activists.

Both the United States and Russia offered help to investigate the accident. The Belarusian government accepted help from the latter but also did not refuse some assistance from the former.

Lukashenka in his recent interview promised not to organize witch hunt, but said that the response to the organizers of the blast would be harsh whoever they were.

I guess there’s hardly a blogger in Belarus who hasn’t commented on the bomb blast. People are guessing what happened and what consequences it would have. There are lots of different versions, but I doubt there is much sense to recapitulate them here. One is for sure. This is the first major terror act in Belarus. Even if the regime itself is not involved (and most probably, it isn’t as many prominent analysts, like Silitski and Feduta, think), there’s a damn good pretense to use this bomb blast for intimidation of the opposition. The blast is especially handy for this matter, as it happened a few days after the parliamentary race had officially started in Belarus.

The Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Heck, it is 287 pages long, and many voters have complained that it is difficult to understand. The document was supposed to make the EU function more efficiently and would give the European Union its first full-time president and create a new and powerful foreign policy chief.

How different are we, Belarusians, from the Irish? Would we vote on something we do not understand? How about the referenda by which we amended the constitution and abolished the rule of law in our homeland? Well, not all of us. I believe none of you, guys, voted yes on those referenda, but I am guessing whether our neighbors next door ever questioned the essence of the president’s proposals while deciding where to put the tick on the ballot.

I well remember those first two referenda. Then Lukashenko was da star, da real hustla. No questions asked, our seniors trusted him full-heartedly. But you can’t bullshit the Irish.

But in this case, the Irish erred. The European integration has stumbled again. As you remember, the Lisbon Treaty emerged after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected a European constitution in 2005. It was sort of a roundabout treaty, and I’m sure it is by far not the final effort to move forward. The EU will come up with some way to advance its course. Maybe the next treaty will be shorter and easier to understand, or local politicians will do a better job explaining it to the voters.

Belarus online media are full of dim prognoses of the upcoming vote on the new media law in the Belarusian Parliament. The changes to the Belarusian media law have been prepared since 2002 and can be voted on as soon as next week.

The changes will specifically address what the Belarusian government refers to as the anarchy in the Internet. It is difficult to say what amendments it would include. Belarusian independent media do not have much detail about the draft, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists points out that the new legislature is being hastily pushed through the parliament. Nothing much is being written on its content. Charter97.org reports that the draft law “On Mass Media” does not contain any fundamental changes in this sphere, and it will be considered by the “deputies” of the “chamber of representatives” on June 17.

Why fear then? Well, even if the law is not changed much, it can become a bit more specific where needed and more equivocal where they reckon necessary. Here’s why. If you were a Belarusian regime-serving judge or a prosecutor, with new law enacted, it would be very easy for you to build your case on those ambiguities of the Belarusian law. So if the government wants to put some online journalist behind bars and to intimidate others, or to close down an unwanted web site, the new law will most probably facilitate the procedure.

Here’s what the authorities have in mind but kind of not too sure how to do it. The first deputy Minister of Information Liliya Ananich recently noted that something should be done about the problem of “misinformation streams” coming from foreign web sites. Their aim, said Ananich, is to “influence the situation in Belarus destructively.”

“However, there is experience of China, where access to these websites at their territory was blocked,” L. Ananich said during a round table discussion, as reported by Charter97.org.

Well, quite an approach to bully us, isn’t it?

Now here is a question to us, journalists, – are we ready for guerilla fighting? How shall we go about the possible Internet filtering techniques? How shall we make our online media more anonymous and multi-faceted so that none of us gets into serious trouble because of our job?

Maybe we need to think more about applying Web 2.0 principles to our web sites. That is to make our media more interactive, less formulaic, and less reminding of a traditional media structure. I guess I’ll explicate these points in my upcoming posts. But my message for now is never fear and be prepared. We shall prevail

Hello fellas! It’s been a very long time since I last posted here, but maybe it’s time to give this blog a new life. Please, let me know what you think.

For some reason, I feel nostalgic for the times when I wrote most of my blog entries in English. Now that I am actively working as an editor of a Belarusian online newspaper westki.info I feel sad I cannot devote enough time to writing texts in languages other than Belarusian or rarely Russian. As a journalist and as a citizen of Belarus I feel obliged to persevere as hard as I can to bring about the change in my home country. That is what I need to focus on. Heh, I repeat this mantra to myself But I also see how little is being written about Belarus in English.

There was a guy whom I never met in real life. We met online, and he motivated me to blog about Belarus in English. His name is Uladzimer Katkouski. Online he used a nickname Rydel23 or Br23. He passed away on May 25 last year after being one year in comma. Uladzimer died at the age of 30. In 2005, he survived a terrible car crash in Prague where he worked as a web-editor of the Belarusian Service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. He never made it out of that comma.

Br23 was one of the best known bloggers in Belarus and one of few who regularly posted in English. When he was in comma, I posted in English quite a lot on my Belarus-American blog. After I graduated and came back to Europe I refocused on the local issues and switched back to Belarusian. But from what I’ seeing, there are even fewer bloggers who raise Belarusian topics in English. Now that we have launched this new English-language project, vilniusblogs.com, I promise to contribute some Belarus-related topics to it.

How is it relevant to the mission of this blog? Just as I wrote in my previous blog post I reckon Belarus and Lithuania to be the closest states ever. And what I would like to achieve by raising Belarus-related topics on this blog is to start a friendly and intelligent discussion between Lithuanians and Belarusians about our history, present and future. Anyone interested is very welcome to join us here!

Originally, I posted this on Vilniusblogs.com, but I am thinking more and more of resurrecting this blog as a good platform for raising Belarus-related issues.

Today’s New York Times published a rather grim outlook on the presence of Soviet era’s secret services in the countries of the old Warsaw Pact.

The case of Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former K.G.B. agent who was poisoned in London in November, would not seem out of place here, where a death threat in Romania, a suicide in Bulgaria and unbroken silence on several unsolved murders provide clues to the continued presence of the secret services today.

Some members of the secret police remain in place. Others took advantage of the state-asset fire sale that came with the dismantling of centrally planned economies and are now quietly powerful players.

Modern-day Belarus, similarly to Russia, resembles a cobweb of various security structures described in detail in a book of Oleg Alkaev “Death Squad.” These interdependent, or competing, groups have bloomed during the long 12 years of Lukashenko rule. The first, and so far the only, Belarusian President has created a network of “siloviki” (a common term to describe law-enforcement structures) to suppress any blossoms of dissent, and so far his servants have succeeded in this rather straightforward mission.

What worries me is the great number of them, those K.G.B. agents, well-paid and dishonest judges, special task force officers, secret service operatives, etc. Belarus by far is the most militarized country in Europe if to count all those various cops and agents who found an easy way to earn money in spheres where not too much thinking is required.

Where will those people be when their services are not needed any longer? But that is just a tip of the iceberg. Consider this. Lukashenko is famous for ruining small and mid-sized businesses and private initiatives. But take a bus, go around the country, talk to the locals, and you will be surprised to find out that in many, many provincial towns, the mayors’ sons and relatives have been opening stores, restaurants, and hotels. In Minsk it happens on a far larger scale; those local barons and “siloviki,” just like in Russia, are buying up Belarus, and their cobweb is growing wider and denser.

What Lukashenko has managed to achieve is that many “unreliable” entrepreneurs are out of business, and diverse markets are now controlled by his people and the people designated by his people. The cobweb. Call it however you want, maybe you can call me paranoid for such fears, but I do sense a network of mob-alike structures forming in my homeland, and this is scary. Unless you are in accord with the regime, you cannot make a lot of money in Belarus – this is almost an axiom. And sadly, the network of those who serve the regime, especially “siloviki,” are now establishing themselves as businesspeople. They look further into the future and build up their careers now, planning their lives in post-Lukashenko era.

In the period after the fall of the various European Communist states in 1989–1991, some countries employed the policy of lustration. In other words, limiting participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor governments or even in civil service positions. But in our case with every other year of Lukashenko’s rule, the prospect of lustration seems to be more and more unrealistic. What we can aspire for is, at least, to sack the judges who sentenced political activists and to fire the most notorious “siloviki,” well, maybe imprison a couple if we can prove their guilt for some of the atrocious acts committed these years. But we cannot purge the entire country of all these diverse and terribly corrupt nomenclature, bureaucrats, and loyal servants of the current regime. Simply there are too many of them.

And what is really bad is that this cobweb will hold us on a leash for long, long years aggravating our European prospects. A very serious danger Belarus will face after the demise of the regime is resurgence of criminal structures and, I even can guess, appearance of very vast and powerful organized criminal groups firmly intertwined within the Belarusian economy. Oh, well, maybe I just need a cup of coffee.

The Varsity Online reported:

I guess this is the most amazing piece of freeware I have come across this year. It is very interesting whether Psiphon might help us and our friends in other censored countries to break through the filters. In our case, this program seems like a musthave during an electoral season. Please, check out the official web site of the project for details and free download.

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka arrived in Tehran late on November 5 for two days of talks with Iranian officials. Belarus’s foreign minister, Serhiy Martynov, says the visit is aimed at bolstering official relations and advancing large-scale economic projects. Read more at RFE\RL.

The pictures of this dismal encounter are so hilarious that Wolny, one of the administrators of the politically incorrect satirical web site, Belzhaba, has promised to create a separate category about the meeting, inviting Photoshop artists to play with the images to make them look even more ridiculous.

I personally laughed my ass off when I saw this.

See more here.

Three months ago, Zmicier Dashkevich and I were luckily strolling along the streets of Washington, DC, and New York City. I remember how we went to a Protestant church in the U.S. national capital, what a nice person he was to talk to, how religious and righteous, kind and intelligent he was. His faith in our victory was unwavering. And now after the Court announced the dismal sentence, one and half years of prison, his last words were, “We will win.”

Zmicier Dashkevich during the trial.

Ala Bulash, the judge who carried out the sentence.

Photos are by Julia Darashkevich, courtesy of Nasha Niva.