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Belarus begins a death penalty purge of radio amateurs
MAYDAY from the airwaves: Belarus begins a death penalty purge of radio amateurs
Behind the absurdity of charging Baofeng users with ‘High Treason‘ lies a terrifying intellectual genocide and an urgent call for international solidarity
Siarhei Besarab
In 1956, the legendary French film If All the Guys in the World gave our community its most beautiful tribute. It portrayed a global chain of strangers who reached across borders through their transmitters to save lives. That film defined us as “men of goodwill,” people selflessly bonded by technology regardless of age, gender, or nationality. Today, that global chain of hands is being shackled in cold iron. In my home country of Belarus, the dream of global solidarity has been turned into a midnight nightmare by the state security apparatus.
I am writing this as Siarhei Besarab, EU1AEY. I am a licensed operator with twenty years in this hobby, and my heart is breaking for what is being lost. We are witnessing the systematic and intentional destruction of an entire technical community. This is a targeted intellectual ethnocide against the most skilled and curious minds in the country. Following the purge of Wikipedia editors and independent researchers, the regime has launched the “Radio Amateurs Case.” This chilling title deliberately echoes the infamous “Doctors’ Plot” of the Stalin era, where an entire group of the country’s best specialists was designated as enemies of the state.
The purge began with disturbing propaganda features on state television where long-time, licensed operators were paraded like war criminals. В humiliating television segments, we watched our colleagues – Andrey Repetiy (EW1ABT) and Nikita Krasko (EW1AEH) – being forced to publicly repent for the “crime” of technical curiosity and international communication. They were coerced on screen to renounce their own technical expertise as something harmful. Vyacheslav Benko (EW1ACE) remains behind bars alongside them.
read more at https://steanlab.medium.com/mayday-389f5713fee4
Behind the absurdity of charging Baofeng users with ‘High Treason‘ lies a terrifying intellectual genocide and an urgent call for international solidarity
Siarhei Besarab
In 1956, the legendary French film If All the Guys in the World gave our community its most beautiful tribute. It portrayed a global chain of strangers who reached across borders through their transmitters to save lives. That film defined us as “men of goodwill,” people selflessly bonded by technology regardless of age, gender, or nationality. Today, that global chain of hands is being shackled in cold iron. In my home country of Belarus, the dream of global solidarity has been turned into a midnight nightmare by the state security apparatus.
I am writing this as Siarhei Besarab, EU1AEY. I am a licensed operator with twenty years in this hobby, and my heart is breaking for what is being lost. We are witnessing the systematic and intentional destruction of an entire technical community. This is a targeted intellectual ethnocide against the most skilled and curious minds in the country. Following the purge of Wikipedia editors and independent researchers, the regime has launched the “Radio Amateurs Case.” This chilling title deliberately echoes the infamous “Doctors’ Plot” of the Stalin era, where an entire group of the country’s best specialists was designated as enemies of the state.
The purge began with disturbing propaganda features on state television where long-time, licensed operators were paraded like war criminals. В humiliating television segments, we watched our colleagues – Andrey Repetiy (EW1ABT) and Nikita Krasko (EW1AEH) – being forced to publicly repent for the “crime” of technical curiosity and international communication. They were coerced on screen to renounce their own technical expertise as something harmful. Vyacheslav Benko (EW1ACE) remains behind bars alongside them.
read more at https://steanlab.medium.com/mayday-389f5713fee4