“Don’t Play with the Dictator” Campaign Goes into Gear in Norway

More and more citizens of this country are taking part in “Don't Play with the Dictator” campaign which was launched last week in a number of European countries.

The campaign is aimed against holding a hockey world championship in Belarus in 2014, Radio Svaboda informs with a reference to a Norwegian TV channel NRK.

“After Belarus won a right to host the world championship in 2009, the situation with human rights in this country has deteriorated considerably. Our aim is to prevent Lukashenka from using this popular sport for propaganda of his regime. Unless all political prisoners are released in this country, the ice hockey championship should not happen there,” said Berit Lindeman from Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

As said by Berit Lindeman, more and more fellow countrymen are signing the online petition Don’t Play with the Dictator. Human rights activists urge the National Ice Hockey Federation to vote for moving the championship from Belarus to another country, as it is probably the only way to influence the situation with political prisoners.

Meanwhile, the head of the Norwegian Ice Hockey Association Ole-Jacob Libaek believes that the campaign is belated.

“So far there are no signs that the decision on the place for holding the Ice Hockey Championship would be changed. Human rights activists were to react back in 2009, before Belarus won the competition,” Libaek said.

By the way, in 2009 he was among the key initiators of holding the prestigious international tournament in Minsk. “I knew that Lukashenka is a real hockey fan. He has done a lot of wonderful things to popularize this sport in his country, he has built many covered ice rinks. But this all does not indicate in any way the human rights situation we are reading about now. That is why the hockey world has decided Belarus would become the country of the Hockey Cup, to my mind. Then this issue was not in the spotlight of the international community,” the president of the Norwegian Ice Hockey Association noted in an interview to NRK.

The International Ice Hockey Association is to consider the issue of moving the World Championship from Belarus to another country. This question is on the agenda of the session of the federation, which is scheduled for May in Helsinki.

The idea to move it to another country emerged after disband of the protest rally against rigged presidential election results on December 19, 2010.

Many political and public leaders from all over the world have signed the address to change the place of holding the championship. The idea to move the Ice Hockey Championship from Belarus has been supported by the European Parliament and the US Congress.

Russia opposes this idea.

There was a precedent of moving a championship to another country in history. In connection with invasion of the Warsaw Pack states to Czechoslovakia in 1968 the ice hockey championship in 1969 was not held in Prague as it had been planned, but in Stockholm.