{"id":589203,"date":"2026-10-14T14:18:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T11:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=589203"},"modified":"2026-10-14T15:08:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T12:08:06","slug":"while-the-regime-fights-belarusian-society-and-culture-the-democratic-forces-task-is-to-preserve-them-tsikhanouskaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/while-the-regime-fights-belarusian-society-and-culture-the-democratic-forces-task-is-to-preserve-them-tsikhanouskaya","title":{"rendered":"While the Regime Fights Belarusian Society and Culture, the Democratic Forces\u2019 Task Is to Preserve Them \u2014 Tsikhanouskaya"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While the regime fights against Belarusian society and culture, the task of the democratic forces is to preserve them. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya<\/strong> made the statement at an OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) event devoted to preserving national and cultural identity under authoritarianism and the role of young people in promoting Belarusian identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia is systematically pursuing a policy of Russification, assimilation and destruction of everything national, everything Belarusian. With Lukashenka\u2019s help, they are trying to turn Belarusians into obedient, loyal people and ultimately into Russians.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I feel proud when I see young people in Belarus recording TikTok videos in Belarusian, creating YouTube videos, and discovering the Belarusian language and culture. This gives me great hope. I firmly believe that while the regime fights against Belarusian society and culture, the task of the democratic forces is to preserve them\u201d<\/em>, she said.<\/p>\n

The event was organized by three dozen OSCE participating states belonging to the Group of Friends of Democratic Belarus. In addition to Tsikhanouskaya, the discussion featured Nobel laureate and human rights defender Ales Bialiatski<\/strong>, Aliaksandra Doinich<\/strong>, head of the RADA Youth Council, and Stsiapan Stureika<\/strong>, an associate professor at the European Humanities University. The discussion was moderated by Michel Roux<\/strong>, France\u2019s newly appointed special envoy for Belarus.<\/p>\n

In her remarks, Tsikhanouskaya also spoke about pressure on Belarusian culture and historical memory. She noted that the Belarusian authorities systematically restrict national culture and use education as a tool of ideological control.<\/p>\n

Tsikhanouskaya drew attention to growing Russian influence through propaganda and educational programmes. She stressed that the recommendations for preserving the Belarusian language and culture set out in the OSCE Moscow Mechanism report of 2023 have still not been implemented.<\/p>\n

She highlighted the role of independent media, civil society and cultural initiatives in preserving Belarusian culture and education abroad.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Tsikhanouskaya\u2019s Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Photo: Tsikhanouskaya\u2019s Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the regime fights against Belarusian society and culture, the task of the democratic forces is to preserve them. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya made the statement at an OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) event devoted to preserving national and cultural identity under authoritarianism and the role of young people in promoting Belarusian identity. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":589206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6acf70aade623.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"While the Regime Fights Belarusian Society and Culture, the Democratic Forces\u2019 Task Is to Preserve Them \u2014 Tsikhanouskaya"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143127,143090],"tags":[143172],"class_list":["post-589203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-society","category-politics","tag-svetlana-tihanovskaja"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589207,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589203\/revisions\/589207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}