Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Belarusian man imprisoned fos showing Canadian flag

Has it come to this? A Belarusian living in the capital city of Minsk, has been imprisoned for 15 days for hanging a Canadian flag in his window. Not because it is illegal to support Canada in Belarus, but because the red-and-white maple leaf flag is suspiciously similar to the red-and-white flag of the Belarus pro-democracy protest movement.

Belarus pro-democracy protest flag
Canada flag

Siarhey Panin has never been to Canada, but the Canadian flag was sent to him by a friend in Ottawa. He was imprisoned when he refused to take the flags down in protest at Lukashenko's rigged election victory last August. It seems that the Belarus authorities do not share Mr. Panin's sense of humour.

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