New year statement from anarchist collective Pramen from Belarus

solidarity

From Pramen


Dear comrades,

behind us 2020 – one of the most intense years in the history of Belarussian society and the anarchist movement. Solidarity became the main weapon in the struggle not only against the dictatorship, but also against the coronavirus. It was by collective efforts that we were able to overcome the first wave of the epidemic.

After the spring bankruptcy of the Belarusan dictatorship, we rebelled. We revolted not only against Lukashenko, but against everything he symbolized – authoritarianism, false stability, hypocrisy and indifference! We rebelled for freedom!

For the past 6 months, our society has been experiencing one of the most brutal repressions in the country’s history. There is no point in naming the numbers of the repressed – they have become so large that it is already difficult for us to comprehend them with our minds. Instead of numbers, we recall the names of those murdered who will remain in our hearts forever:

Alexander Taraiskovsky
Alexander Vihor
Nikita Krivtsov
Artyom Parukov
Gennadiy Shutov
Konstantin Shishmakov
Denis Kuznetsov
Roman Bondarenko

But through thorns we rush to the stars! Despite repression, our resistance continues. We take to the streets by the thousands every week. We continue to organize in our workplaces and neighborhood initiatives. The train of self-organization is unstoppable. We have tasted freedom!

If you had asked us a year ago what awaits us in 2020, we couldn’t have imagined that we would collectively wake up from our long sleep, rise from our knees and fight shoulder to shoulder for a future without dictatorship!

We do not know what awaits us in 2021. But we do know that we are going into this year together, and we have never felt such a sense of solidarity! We believe that together we can free our world from the lies, violence and lawlessness of Lukashenko and his friends.

But dear friends, we remain anarchists and we wish that in 2021, we will not strive for a new strong leader who will be able to lead us into a “bright” future. We want to achieve more and become an independent society that needs freedom instead of a strong leader!

And we call for the fight to continue in 2021 from the first minutes of the new year! Take to the streets and greet the new year not with family or a couple of friends. Our family is all of us: neighbors, friends, acquaintances and relatives. We are all in this fight together! That’s why on New Year’s Eve we will march to the central Christmas trees and do our best to meet this new year in struggle!

See you on the streets of revolutionary Belarus!
Your anarchists from Pramen!
For freedom, equality and solidarity!

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Greetings from ABC-Belarus for the New Year
from https://abc-belarus.org/?p=13587&lang=en

Today is the last day of this year, which was almost a fateful day for many Belarusians, and anarchists are no exception. In terms of the scale of repression, the year surpassed even 2010, although this time we were not the most repressed group, because the persecution affected a lot of people. Some of our comrades are in prison, some have been forced to leave the country, and some take the possible repression with fatalism.

The ABC-Belarus has tried to keep activists confident that they will not be left alone if they encounter problems. We are grateful to all those who collected parcels, searched for people in courts and prisons, held solidarity actions, transferred money to us, wrote letters to prisoners, met forced migrants in a foreign land and offered them a safe place to stay.

It’s entirely possible that we overlooked someone, somewhere we didn’t help in time, didn’t get the right information, and didn’t make something important public.

But anti-authoritarian activists in Belarus can always count on our support.

In the New Year, we wish everyone freedom – inside and outside: not to look around in the street, not to be afraid of raids and detentions, not to imagine how you will spend your days in jail, not to abandon your loved ones on the run, to trust those around you, and to openly spread your ideas and practices.

Have a successful fight!
ABC-Belarus

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