{"id":3106,"date":"2020-06-25T12:19:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T12:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2024-02-07T16:28:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T16:28:00","slug":"culture-held-hostage-we-demand-the-release-of-viktar-and-eduard-babaryka-removal-of-all-restrictions-on-cultural-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2020\/06\/25\/culture-held-hostage-we-demand-the-release-of-viktar-and-eduard-babaryka-removal-of-all-restrictions-on-cultural-projects.html","title":{"rendered":"Culture held hostage: We demand the release of Viktar and Eduard Babaryka, removal of all restrictions on cultural projects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Presidential challenger<strong> Viktar Babaryka<\/strong>, a philanthropist and the former Belgazprombank CEO, and his son <strong>Eduard<\/strong>, a cultural manager and the head of fundraising platforms <strong>Ulej<\/strong> and <strong>MolaMola<\/strong>, were detained during the ongoing electoral campaign. Belarus\u2019 human rights defenders have<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/2020\/06\/19\/patrabuem-vyzvalennya-viktara-babaryki-i-zatrymanyh-syabrau-yagonaj-iniczyyatyunaj-grupy.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">recognized<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Viktar and Eduard Babaryka as political prisoners. The criminal case against Belgazprombank led to the seizure of paintings from Belgazprombank\u2019s corporate collection and paralyzed the work of the Ulej and MolaMola crowdfunding platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Viktar Babaryka with support from Belgazprombank initiated and implemented the following cultural projects: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the international forum of theater art TEART (initially known as the Theater Week with Belgazprombank, 2010-2019), <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ten Centuries of Art in Belarus (2014) exhibition dedicated to the 75<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> anniversary of the Belarusian National Arts Museum, <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Autumn Salon with Belgazprombank (2015-2019) aimed at highlighting the works by young Belarusian artists working in various forms of art (painting, graphic, sculpture, decorations, and installation). <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was also backing the cultural hub OK16, which has been in operation since 2017.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-post-thumbnails wp-image-3102\" src=\"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/foto-komanda_website-936x644.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"936\" height=\"644\" \/ loading=\"lazy\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-size: 8pt\"><em>\u0412\u0456\u043a\u0442\u0430\u0440 \u0456 \u042d\u0434\u0443\u0430\u0440\u0434 \u0411\u0430\u0431\u0430\u0440\u044b\u043a\u0430. \u0424\u043e\u0442\u0430\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/babariko.vision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">https:\/\/babariko.vision\/\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>In 2018, Belgazprombank financed the publication of 15,000 copies of Svetlana Alexievich\u2019s five-volume collection of works translated into Belarusian as a gift to libraries across Belarus.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2015, Viktar Babaryka was recognized as the 2014 Art Patron of Belarus.\u00a0 The creation of Belgazprombank\u2019s corporate collection stands out as one of his most remarkable initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belgazprom Corporate Collection is a collection of artworks gathered as part of the Art Belarus national project that intended to show the historical face of fine arts in Belarus. Currently, it features over 150 artifacts &#8211; paintings, sculptures, and books. The key items of the collection are the works by the School of Paris artists born in Belarus: Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fa\u00efbich-Schraga Zarfin, Pinchus Kremegne, Michel Kikoine, Ossip Lubich, Ossip Zadkine. Thirty-five pieces are featured in the State Register of Historical and Cultural Values of the Republic of Belarus. From 2017 until recently, a significant part of the collection was showcased to the general public in the Art Belarus gallery at the Palace of Arts in Minsk. According to<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvr.by\/news\/obshchestvo\/denezhnye_makhinatsii_i_otmyvanie_krupnykh_kapitalov_departament_finansovykh_rassledovaniy_goskontro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">state media reports<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u201c150 paintings worth $20 million were attached to the Belgazprombank criminal case.\u201d Art experts <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.svaboda.org\/a\/30672247.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noindex noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">describe the situation as an illegal takeover<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. As of today, the fate and location of the collection remain unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In June 2020, the accounts of the crowdfunding and fundraising platforms Ulej and MolaMola were blocked. Those platforms were instrumental in providing services that Ministry of Culture, as well as the Ministries of Education, Information, Healthcare and Labor and Social Security failed to deliver. Over the past years, Ulej.by implemented a wide range of projects, including 211 initiatives dealing with the publication of books for children and adults in the Russian and Belarusian languages; 82 projects supporting theater productions, documentaries and short feature films; 92 projects in the media field (blogs, opinion writers, online news outlets); 191 social initiatives (assistance to hospitals, protection of animals and other civically useful projects); 126 projects supporting designers (apparel, accessories, creative products); as well as 88 business startups.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>While the state chose to support artists loyal to the government, Viktar and Eduard Babaryka have created an ecosystem for Belarusian culture. We demand to stop the politically motivated persecution, to release Viktar and Eduard Babaryka, and \u201cliberate\u201d their cultural projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>Belarusian PEN Center<br \/>\nPublishers of Amerykanka book series<br \/>\nTranslators\u2019 Workshop<br \/>\nWorld Association of Belarusians \u201cBa\u0107ka\u016d\u0161\u010dyna\u201d<br \/>\nBudzma Belarusami Civic Cultural Campaign<br \/>\nART Corporation Cultural Center<br \/>\nInternational theatre forum TEART<br \/>\nArt Siadziba<br \/>\nBelfilm Association<br \/>\nUnion of Belarusian Writers<br \/>\nThe Flying University<br \/>\nEuropean College of Liberal Arts in Belarus<br \/>\nVZAP Cultural Center<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Cross-Value Antiplatform<br \/>\nPress Club Belarus<br \/>\nFrantsysk Skaryna Belarusian Language Society<br \/>\nJanushkevich Publishing House<br \/>\nLohvinau\u00a0Publishing House<br \/>\nHalijafy\u00a0Publishing House<br \/>\nPfliaumbaum Publishing Initiative<br \/>\nEducational Portal\u00a0Wir.by<br \/>\nWatchDocs International Documentary Film Festival<br \/>\nBelarusian Collegium<br \/>\nMagazine of translated literature Prajdzisvet<br \/>\nYazep Drazdovich Cultural and Educational Center<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Norwegian Authors\u2019 Union<br \/>\n<\/span>PEN America<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The statement is open to signing by other organizations.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The cultural community of Belarus strongly protests against the politically motivated persecution of cultural figures and against other actions of Belarusian authorities that block the existence of significant cultural and civic initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidarity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3534,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}