Belarusian Council for Culture is an "extremist formation" now

Dear friends!

On June 7, the team of the Belarusian Council for Culture was proclaimed an "extremist formation" by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. All our pages on social media, our website, our future initiatives to create the Resource Center of Belarusian Culture, the Institute for the Promotion of Belarus, and the Cultural Soym are called "extremist" as well. Even our logo, a symbol of the Belarusian ornament, is "extremist" now.

What does this mean?

It is a sign of recognition for our team. We became the first Belarusian cultural initiative to gain the "extremist formation" status. Until now, it was "granted" only to the media, chat rooms and communities with a strong political orientation. Yesterday the number of our social media subscribers grew, we gave comments to journalists and received congratulations from colleagues.

This new status can only benefit Belarusian culture development. It also means that the course taken is correct, because it completely contradicts the current occupation policy in Belarus. Nowadays "culture" in the eyes of the regime consists of daily repression, total control, ideological service, Russification, and militarization of the sphere.

We used to be very careful about our projects in Belarus, but now due to the security reasons we will have new cooperation protocols.
We used to take care of our own safety and the safety of our partners, but now more strict digital security protocols will be obligatory to follow.

The Belarusian Council for Culture remains with you, we continue to work for the development of New Belarus. We have no choice now, because the road to the old Belarus — the country it is today, is closed.