The Belarusian government has continued with its crackdown on opposition groups by arresting Mikhas Bashura on charges of forgery. Bashura, who denies the charges, is an outspoken member of the Tell the Truth campaign. In May 2010 three of his campaign colleagues were arrested. Two months later his car was searched and campaign documents containing the signatures of 20,000 people were seized. The arrest is the latest in a series of actions against opposition campaigners.
A recording of a performance of “Numbers”, directed by Vladimir Shcherban, performed in secret by the Belarus Free Theatre, an outlaw theatre group in Europe’s last dictatorship.
Now watch
Video: Natalia Koliada on surviving in Europe’s last dictatorship
Video: Sir Tom Stoppard presents… Belarus Free Theatre
On Tuesday, 13 July, Index on Censorship hosted a very special event at the Free Word Centre in London. Index played host to the Belarus Free Theatre, an outlaw company that defies Europe’s last dictatorship to produce challenging, contemporary drama
Award-winning playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, who has long associations with both Index on Censorship and the Belarus Free Theatre, introduced the evening:
Now watch
Video: Natalia Koliada on surviving in Europe’s last dictatorship
Banned in their native Belarus and renowned for staging uncensored performances underground, Belarus Free Theatre is a rare voice of dissent in Europe’s last dictatorship. Co-founder Natalia Koliada explains what life is like for her theatre group
The easiest way for me to describe the situation in Belarus is to ask you to imagine… Just imagine, you sit in the evening, you talk to your friend….the next day that friend is kidnapped and killed. It was my husband and his friend Dmitry Zavadsky. They sat and discussed their lives, their wives and their children but the next day he was dead
