Hashtags and posters to tell championship guests about political prisoners

The idea was proposed by advertising specialist Yulia Liashkevich. A similar practice was used in Russia during the Sochi Olympics.

Maryna Adamovich, the wife of political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich, called on editors and journalists of independent media to spread information on the internet about human rights violations in Belarus with the help of special hashtags:

#minsk2014, #минск2014, #мінск2014 #worldcup2014 #hockey2014, #хоккей2014 #belarus2014, #icehockey2014.

The idea belongs to advertising specialist Yulia Liashkevich. She talked Salidarnasts what she had done and what she planned to do.

She says she told her friends about the idea to use hashtags. They recalled that the same practice had been used in Russia ahead of the Sochi Olympics to attract attention to the problem of discrimination against sexual minorities.

In addition to the hashtags, Yulia prepared special posters in Belarusian, Russian and English informing about each political prisoner.

“We are launching the poster today about the activists arrested ahead of the championship. The picture compares the Olympic Games in Hitler's Berlin and the championship in Minsk.”

Yulia Liashkevich also plans to launch zn online betting project to guest who will be detained next.

“Many find this idea cruel. But many don't know that the police catch and jail people preventively.”

There are nine political prisoners in Belarus, among them former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich and human rights defender Ales Bialiatski. As for preventive arrests, Zmitser Dashkevich, Aliaksadrn Stsepanenka, Uladzimir Siarheyeu, Illia Dabratvor and Maksim Viniarski were detained before the Chernobyl Way rally. Ten more people were detained and jailed during and after the rally on April 26.