For the documentation, the Turkish journalist Can Dündar accompanied Svetlana Tichanowskaja to appointments and performances in Vilnius, Vienna, Aachen and Berlin for months. DW presented the documentation on Friday evening as part of the Munich Security Conference.
DW Director General Peter Limbourg said at the premiere in Munich: “Most people in the West don’t know what it’s like to live in exile, not being able to return to their homeland. That’s why our film with Svetlana Tichanovskaya and Can Dündar is so important. It also draws attention back to the courageous struggle of the people of Belarus.”
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said after the film screening: “Everyone who lives in Belarus is in constant danger of being arrested, kidnapped, put in prison.”
“My husband is on trial again in Belarus. We all know it’s a farce. An attempt to put pressure on him to break him. But my husband, like all other political prisoners, is unbreakable,” Tikhanovskaya said. The more than 1,000 prisoners “know that the Belarusian people continue to fight for them. They believe in us, in the international community. Because together we will be able to find mechanisms to protect our loved ones through pressure, through sanctions, through negotiations [aus dem Gefängnis] out and liberate our country from dictatorship.”
Film premiere in Munich on February 17, 2023 – from left: DW director Linda Vierecke, Svetlana Tichanovskaya, DW director Peter Limbourg and Can Dündar.
In the film series Guardians of Truth, Can Dündar, former editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, who was imprisoned in 2015 for his research into arms sales from Turkey to Syria, meets exiled journalists, politicians and dissidents around the world . He talks to them about the fate that he himself shares with them. Dündar’s films show impressive biographies of people who fearlessly stand up for freedom of expression.
Can Dündar: “We live in a time when freedom is under threat in many places around the world. Luckily there are courageous people everywhere who defend this freedom. It is a privilege to be able to meet her as part of this film series.”
The protagonists Can Dündar and Svetlana Tichanovskaya
Turkish journalist Can Dündar exposed Turkey’s illegal arms shipments to Syria in 2015, was labeled a terrorist by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and fled to Germany after he was attacked during his trial. Since then he has campaigned for freedom of expression worldwide.
Svetlana Tichanovskaya is the Belarusian opposition leader “against her will”. In 2020, her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky ran in the presidential election against longtime ruler Alexander Lukashenko, but was arrested before election day and later sentenced to 18 years in a penal camp. Swetlana Tichanowskaja took over her husband’s candidacy for a short time, but left the country with her two children a little later for security reasons and has been living in exile in Lithuania ever since. She called for peaceful protests against ruler Lukashenko and advocates the release of political prisoners.
In the current Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Belarus is ranked 153rd out of 180 countries.
The production is available in six languages on the DW Documentary YouTube channels:
DW Documentary (English) youtube.com/dwdocumentary
DW Documentary (Arabic) youtube.com/dwdocarabia
DW Documental (Spanish) youtube.com/dwdocumental
DW Documentary (Hindi) youtube.com/dwdochindi
DW Doku (German) youtube.com/dwdoku
DW Turkish (Türkisch) youtube.com/dwturkce
