Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “Today, Raman Bandarenka could have been celebrating his birthday. But three and a half years ago, the regime brutally and inhumanely tortured him to death. Time passes, but the pain of this tragedy remains within us.
It’s impossible to come to terms with the idea that people are killed for their beliefs. Mothers are thrown behind bars and threatened with losing their parental rights. Elderly people are mocked by prison guards when they ask for medical assistance.
It’s intolerable that every day dozens of criminal cases are initiated over online comments, while those responsible for the murder that occurred in central Minsk and resonated worldwide remain unidentified and unpunished.
It’s unacceptable that propaganda films videos of helpless people forced to repent their “crimes”, willing to do anything just to see their loved ones again, while all investigations by independent journalists into Raman’s murder — with audio recordings and evidence gathered by experts — are discarded.
It’s unimaginable that doctors who fought for the man’s life ended up behind bars for telling us the truth.
It’s impossible to ‘turn over the page’ when it is stained with the blood of Raman and other Belarusian heroes killed for their desire for a free and independent Belarus. A page that is filled daily with new names of those whom the regime targets by throwing them into solitary confinement, denying any communication with the outside world and keeping them incommunicado, and pressuring their loved ones.
On this day, let us remember not only Raman but all those whose courage and bravery have become symbols of the struggle for the freedom of Belarus.
Belarus remembers its heroes. Because heroes never die!”
