On August 9, Belarusians marked Dignity Day in Warsaw, commemorating the 2020 protests in Belarus. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya joined the event, along with representatives of the United Transitional Cabinet and the Coordination Council, Ukraine’s Ambassador-at-Large (MFA) Iaroslav Chornogor, Polish public figure and journalist Adam Michnik, representatives of civil society, and the Belarusian diaspora in Warsaw.
Addressing the crowd, Sviatlana Tsihanouskaya recalled the remarkable Belarusian moment six years ago, when neither experts, authorities, nor security services could predict that millions of Belarusians would take to the streets.
“The regime was racking its brains: Who is bringing people out? Who organized all this? The answer was very simple: Belarusians themselves.
They have written us off more than once. They expected this to be over in a few more months. They thought we would fall out, go our separate ways, forget. But here we are, six years later, and the Belarusian movement is still alive. We are still here. New people are joining, new ideas are emerging, and political prisoners are being released.
So if anyone is losing heart today, remember 2020. What is Belarusian, alive, and free will grow through no matter how hard they try to suppress it. We simply need to keep doing our work and prepare for the next window of opportunity.
I want to say THANK YOU to all of you! Thank you for standing strong. For not giving up. And thank you for continuing to believe in Belarus.
Long Live Belarus!”
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya also shared a deeply moving and personal moment from the event on Instagram.
