In Belarus – the first arrest for denying the genocide of Belarusians
March 3, 2024
For the first time, the Investigative Committee of Belarus opened a criminal case under the article on the denial of the genocide of Belarusians. The state agency BELTA reported this on Sunday, March 3, citing the department’s press office.
According to the agency, a case has been opened against a 54-year-old resident of Minsk. According to the investigation materials, in 2020, in a group he created on a social network, he published “materials related to protests”, as well as “information that discredits the republic and exonerates the fascists”.
In particular, the accused allegedly claimed that “the Germans treated the population of Belarus with good humor, but it was mainly the partisans who committed atrocities.” In addition, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the detained citizen stated that the village of Khatyn was burned by partisans during the Second World War.
Law “On the Genocide of the Belarusian People”
In July 2021, Alexander Lukashenko, during his speech at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Mound of Glory memorial complex near Minsk, spoke about the “Belarusian Holocaust” or the “Holocaust of the Belarusian people” during the years of the Nazi occupation of Belarus.
In December 2021, the House of Representatives of the country’s National Assembly adopted the law “On the genocide of the Belarusian people”. The article was added to the Belarusian Criminal Code in early 2022. Denial of the fact of “genocide of the Belarusian people” is punishable by up to five years in prison, and again by up to ten years in prison.
The “genocide of the Belarusian people” in the law refers to the crimes that the Nazis and their accomplices, as well as anti-Soviet “nationalist formations” committed in the period from June 22, 1941 to December 31, 1951 on the territory of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR).
At the same time, as experts point out, the wording of the law and its interpretation by Lukashenko actually deny the facts of the Holocaust on the territory of Belarus. At the same time, Lukashenko stated that the Jews “were able to prove ‘their’ Holocaust” and “the whole world today bows down to them, they are even afraid to point the finger at them.” Both in Israel and in Western Jewish publications, this statement caused criticism, and Lukashenko himself was accused of anti-Semitism.
Source: DW
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