A 60-year-old woman in uniform stands next to the combine harvester, the voice of the host of a Belarusian state broadcaster explains: “Tatijana Rogava works hard in the fields despite her age. She is the combine harvester’s assistant. But if the fatherland called her, she could do herself also get behind the wheel yourself. ”
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Ideal world on state television
The woman herself says that her job is difficult, but also interesting. Your story is accompanied by moving music and beautiful pictures of the ripe grain in a sunny field. The harvest and the Olympic Games are the two topics that are currently being covered the most in the Belarusian state media. Medalists and field workers are traditionally portrayed as heroes. The trainer of the Belarusian trampoline gymnast Olga Wlasova proudly tells the cameras that she has fulfilled her duty to the fatherland – one of her athletes has won a gold medal for Belarus. Pictures with a lot of pathos and hurray patriotism, as we know them from socialist times.
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The sprinter Kristina Timanowskaja, on the other hand, is considered a traitor in this world. The athlete gained notoriety around the world last week when she publicly criticized officials on the National Olympic Sports Committee – led by President Lukashenko’s older son. In an Instagram video, she angrily said that officials missed doping controls and that two athletes could not be admitted to the relay race in Tokyo as a result. Instead, Timanovskaya should step in, although it is not her discipline at all, she was accordingly not prepared for it and thus there was a risk of injury.
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Criticism undesirable
Belarusian sports officials took the athlete’s criticism as an opportunity to exclude her from further competitions and to force her to leave for Belarus. She refused loudly, causing an international scandal and finally was able to flee to Poland. On social media, users joke: Belarus has adopted the best of Soviet sport, athletes who break away during international competitions abroad.
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However, the official Belarusian media have their own view of things. It is an honor to compete in the Olympic Games for the fatherland, which Timanovskaya trampled underfoot. And anyway, she had planned all of this well in advance and even discussed it with foreign intelligence services in advance. They just waited for the right moment to damage the country’s reputation.
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Little trust in Belarusian media
While the independent online media report on political court cases, the migration crisis on the Lithuanian border and more and more arrests, the other, the official media image of Belarus, is more stable than ever. The president’s sports club opened a new basketball court, Lukashenko spoke to the Minister of Civil Protection, Lukashenko congratulated the President of Namibia on his 80th birthday, the happy workers of the Gomel dairy visit the presidential palace and so on.
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For the people of the country, the discrepancy between the words of the state media and reality is hard to miss. Nevertheless, it is difficult to collect reliable figures on how high the level of trust in these media actually is. Independent sociological studies are forbidden, and their publication is a criminal offense. Sociologists and political scientists are repeatedly arrested for their work.
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More departures than ever
According to a study by the British think tank Chatham House in April 2021, only 15 percent of Belarusians trust the state media. The world of these 15 percent seems to be turned upside down: They demand from European governments that human rights are observed in their own states, they post videos against the European sanctions policy on social networks and are firmly convinced that Lukashenko has the country before the have preserved complete annihilation.
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For many Belarusians, on the other hand, the escape from this “paradise of stability and prosperity” remains the last resort. The Polish Foreign Ministry reports that in 2021 alone, it issued 90,000 visas to Belarusian citizens, including 9,000 humanitarian ones. People are leaving the country en masse. And this despite the fact that Lukashenko has closed the borders for trips to the West since December last year. And after he forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk at the end of May 2021, Belarus can only fly to two destinations in the west: Tel-Aviv and Istanbul. Those who can use this last opportunity to leave, those who stay patiently wait for a realistic chance for change, to take to the streets again and to demonstrate for their freedom.
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