Charter Radars Configured to Accept Connections

Now more than ever, the feedback is required.

I reside in Belarus now, and Charter'97 is everywhere except Belarus. I do not know whether I can see my own text. I'll try, I will go through dark forests, high mountaints, proxy servers. But these guys working for the regime walk the same paths and set traps. So, I feel like I put a sheet of paper in a bottle, seal it with wax and throw into the ocean. I hear a splash and I don't know whether it is washed ashore or is lost in waves.

By the way, the ocean is agood comparison with the Internet. It's also the element falling behind the state minds and living under inder its own laws. State minds can surely poison the Internet as well as the ocean: split oil, destroy rare species of whales, cause a tsunami with underwater nuclear explosion. However, no matter how hard they try, they will not be capable of fighting the element.

If the Internet is comparable to the ocean, the word is the same physical phenomenon as light or sound. Can a word be destroyed? Is it possible to do the same with sound? Or light? Or Newtonian attraction? It's pointless. Well, if they try really hard, it is possible to effect the whole planet. But Belarusian officials are too weak to do it. A curst cow has short horns.

The curst cow has been persistently trying to ruin the word for long. You remember conditions the website has been operating in recent years. The murder of Aleh Byabenin, a criminal case, tough confiscation of all equipment, interrogation of journalists, after which some even surrendered and left in order not to worsen their position. Those who stayed, now face challenges. They are in prisons, in exile, in hiding. It would seem that one should recognize defeat and take the next level of fighting the Charter, when the editorial office is geographically, legally and physically unavailable, and when it's no longer possible to arrest, beat and seize computers. For example, to start practicing propaganda - a stupid and strict one - as every war requires. To tell on TV about journalists' accounts of millions of dollars and toilet pans made of gold in editorial offices. But they miss fantasy to come up with at least golden toilet pans.

Many people have been wondering for the third day why it happened. After all, Makei is in Brussels, Lukashenka has a peaceful conversation with the OSCE PA representative, all those willing to take part in the show "elections to local councils" are registered (I think they are short of candidates). In general, everything's great. So why has it happened? Is there other fight to death between clans, and young Vitya defeated the educated Makei?

The version is good, but wrong. No one is fighting there. They, inhabitants of luxury reservations, fight freedom, the people, the word. They resist Belarus, they are being scared to death of; the Belarus which took the streets last winter and which made them revoke the parasitic tax. The very Belarus which can't be shown on TV, the Belarus with not "professional opposition members protesting for money." And they shut up for a while.

And yesterday the parasitic decree was republished. Now the tax will be raised not once, but it is veiled with the payment for state-subsidized services. And, believe me, they will raise much more. How long was this decree "discussed and amended". What if people take the streets again? And one more, the Charter, the most readable resource, always informs about upcoming protest actions in advance. No, the Charter should not exist any longer.

The curst cow clearly knows that it can't destroy the Charter. Nevertheless, the blow is hard. And it hurts not only employees and authors of the Charter, but its readers. It hurts readers first. The most persistent will use anonymizers and other modernthings to read it. Some will just stop reading it. And there are also those who are willing to come through the jungle and traps, but they fail. This is what Drazdy figure on.

Therefore, now more than ever, the feedback is required. It's important to speak out: I'm here, I'm with you, I hear you! And to spend a short while bypassing the blocking access. Subscribe for the Charter on social networks. Repost articles. To signal: I have heard, read, accepted. Using the Morse code or flags. Charter radars are configured to accept connections.

And I let my bottled manuscript sail the oceans. I do not know whether it is ever washed ashore and read. But I believe that it's not possible to ruin the power of words. The storm is raging washing ashore twisted ships and distorted fates of my compatriots. Friends, do you hear me? Ring the alarm!

Iryna Khalip, specially for Charter97.org