State Propaganda Discredits the White-Red-White Flag in Belarus

Propaganda Toolkit in the Fight against Peaceful Protests

13 April 2021

Olga Aleshko-Lessels & Andrei Yeliseyeu

The peaceful uprising against the Belarusian regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka is not only a matter of obtaining democracy but also concerns the symbols of public life. While the protesters have used the white-red-white flag to symbolise their resistance, the authorities continue to support the red-green flag while cracking down against any signs of public dissent.

A likely legislative ban on the white-red-white (WRW) flag through its classification as extremist only formalises the already ongoing absurd repressions against Belarusian historical symbols.

Even now, without legal grounds, displaying the WRW flag in practice is punished almost more severely than Nazi symbols. The state Belarusian and pro-Kremlin propaganda networks actively use absurd parallels with the Nazis to denigrate historical symbols.

Belarusian state bodies have begun to fight against Belarusian national symbols, history and common sense. The priority of state workers is not the fight against snowdrifts and fixing central heating but the destruction of white-red-white combinations in public spaces.

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