Lukashenka signed the Culture Code prohibiting his discredit

Фото: Depositphotos

On July 25, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed a Code of Culture, which, according to experts, has no analogues in the world. Among other things, the document will make it possible to ban cultural activities in the event of the dissemination of messages that “discredit the honor and dignity” of the country’s president and heads of government agencies.

Under the ban, according to the code, cultural activity directed against the sovereignty of the republic, calling for the violent seizure of power, a change in the constitutional order, and propagandizing extremism, violence, intolerance or hostility, falls.

For example, a cultural event will be interrupted and forbidden if in the hall, on the dance floor, in one of the paintings of the exhibition or somewhere else, not officially registered symbols will appear. This item, judging by what was written in the document, threatens viewers with a premature ending of the spectacle not only for opposition flags, but, theoretically, even for a flag with a pokemon.

The document contains a total of 5 sections, 27 chapters, 257 articles regulating the creation and operation of museums, libraries, archaeological excavations, film production and much more - right down to the rules of behavior at discos and the process of giving tickets to spectators.

The Code gives priority to the development of the Belarusian national culture and recognizes the Belarusian language as one of the factors shaping the national mentality. However, the document also contains a clause on the right to free development of cultures of all national communities living in Belarus.

The status of a creative worker who is not a member of any union, according to the code, will need to be confirmed with an appropriate certificate, in fact, a certificate that will be issued by an expert commission to confirm status at the Ministry of Culture.

“Such an identification does not exist in nature, it’s some kind of stupidity,” opposition poet Vladimir Neklyaev, who in 2010 was one of Lukashenko’s competitors in the fight for the presidency, told the BBC, but was brutally beaten on election day. center of Minsk and later sent from the hospital to the KGB pre-trial detention center.

“I don’t know what methods they will use to punish those cultural workers and creators who do not have a certificate that they are cultural workers and will violate instructions when creating. Fines? Six months in prison? But this is another nonsense, another proof of the absolute incompetence of the authorities in the sphere of culture,” Neklyaev is convinced.

Deputies of the Belarusian Parliament, who adopted the Code of Culture in June, and officials of the relevant “cultural” departments emphasize that the new document only collected the current provisions and instructions in Belarus “in one folder.”

“I am ironic about the state’s attempts to regulate those areas that have somehow lived without it for many centuries and millennia,” notes the famous playwright Andrei Kureichik. “Both creators and audience-readers know very well who is talented and who is not. There are creative organizations, there is a viewer and a reader who determines this. […] I definitely won’t go to the Ministry of Culture to get a certificate. I believe that with all sorts of such regulations we are moving further and further from the normal European civilized space.”

The Belarusian Cultural Code will come into force six months after publication on the National Legal Portal. Wits are already predicting that the Slavic Bazaar music festival in Vitebsk will be interrupted next summer as soon as Russian comedian Maxim Galkin tells another joke about Lukashenko.

In July, Galkin’s speech, in which he repeatedly released taunts about the president of Belarus, who was present in the hall, and the Russian authorities, caused a big resonance in social networks.

“Our politics are as stable as yours,” Galkin concluded, addressing Alexander Lukashenko.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Belarusians began to "undress and work," as advised Lukashenko

The European Union decided to remove the sanctions from Alexander Lukashenko

Lukashenko ready to use military force in case of color revolution

Lukashenko reelected for the fifth time

Son Lukashenko in the UN outraged the social network

With whom and how many lessons son skipped Lukashenko. A PHOTO

Go to the page ForumDaily on Facebook to keep abreast of the latest news and comment material. Also follow the social network for events in your city - Miami, New York и San Francisco Bay Area.