The Belarusian leader delivered a personal and touching speech at the Prague Congress on Political Prisoners in Belarus.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “When my daughter heard that on May 21, Belarusians observe Political Prisoner Day, she asked: ‘Is this daddy’s day too?’ I replied: ‘Yes, your daddy is a hero. This is his day. This is the day of many fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers, and grandmothers who are recognized as political prisoners’. Essentially, there is not a single Belarusian family that has not been affected by repression in some way. Thousands of Belarusian children are growing up in single-parent families simply because of a dictator’s decision.
No gifts can make up for a stolen childhood. For children, nothing compares to being in the father’s arms or hugging their mother. Our children are deprived of this opportunity.
There is one thing that tortures the families of political prisoners think about every day, and me as well. Every night, when I go to bed, I think: Is my loved one alive, is everything alright with him? We cannot be sure that our loved ones are alright, and this is very destabilizing. But we simply cannot break. This is our collective responsibility. We want to free not just our loved ones, our friends, our like-minded people, and relatives. We bear a collective responsibility to save our children and their future.
We will only succeed if everyone gets involved. Some can help with their resources, others with their time, or their skills. This is a struggle to restore not only our families in the narrow sense, but also our family in the broad sense. Our Belarus”.
The full speech in Belarusian is available on YouTube.
