Belarusians at the 2nd Nordic Fire Solidarity Festival in Stockholm
10/05/2012
Submitted by
Viachaslau Bortnik
Three Belarusian journalists took part in a mini-festival between Prides that ended on May 6 in the Swedish capital after five days of seminars, discussions, art exhibits, music, song, stage performances, film screenings, and study visits.
"This was a great opportunity for us to tell an international gathering about our newly-formed Belarus LGBT Journalists Union," says Andrus Kliksha -- one of the three-man delegation brought to the festival by Sweden’s Civil Rights Defenders (CRD) and speaking at the festival seminar at the Old Town offices of the CRD. "It was also immensely important for us to see with our own eyes the activities carried out by Swedish organizations in the field of LGBT community support and defense. The meetings in Noah’s Ark and in the PostiHIVa Gruppen showed us that the Swedish experience of HIV prevention and HIV positive MSM people support has some significant differences with the Belarusian realities. It is arranged at a much higher quality level, similar groups in Belarus should aim for."
At the seminar at the Civil Rights Defenders, the CRD's Erik Esbjörnson: "We are proud to be working with LGBT organizations in St. Petersburg, the Balkans, Belarus and elsewhere -- and to bring more human rights activists to Stockholm to meet representatives of other Swedish organizations."
The three visiting Belarus activists Andrus, Max and Oleg added: "Taking into account the highly discriminatory environment for LGBT community members in Belarus, it was highly important for us to learn the Swedish experience of struggle for equal rights. Apart from motivating us to hold similar activities in Belarus, such meetings are extremely valuable for us, since they provide us with fresh ideas on what efficient directions and new methods of information and general enlightening work could be applied even in our desperate situation, in order to bring to the fellow-citizens’ minds a clear thought that LGBT people in Belarus are mentally normal and meeting the norms of the civilized moral, on the one hand, and that they deserve equal rights with other Belarusians, in order to leave in the same peaceful and calm way, as all the other people in the country do."
"This was a great opportunity for us to tell an international gathering about our newly-formed Belarus LGBT Journalists Union," says Andrus Kliksha -- one of the three-man delegation brought to the festival by Sweden’s Civil Rights Defenders (CRD) and speaking at the festival seminar at the Old Town offices of the CRD. "It was also immensely important for us to see with our own eyes the activities carried out by Swedish organizations in the field of LGBT community support and defense. The meetings in Noah’s Ark and in the PostiHIVa Gruppen showed us that the Swedish experience of HIV prevention and HIV positive MSM people support has some significant differences with the Belarusian realities. It is arranged at a much higher quality level, similar groups in Belarus should aim for."
At the seminar at the Civil Rights Defenders, the CRD's Erik Esbjörnson: "We are proud to be working with LGBT organizations in St. Petersburg, the Balkans, Belarus and elsewhere -- and to bring more human rights activists to Stockholm to meet representatives of other Swedish organizations."
The three visiting Belarus activists Andrus, Max and Oleg added: "Taking into account the highly discriminatory environment for LGBT community members in Belarus, it was highly important for us to learn the Swedish experience of struggle for equal rights. Apart from motivating us to hold similar activities in Belarus, such meetings are extremely valuable for us, since they provide us with fresh ideas on what efficient directions and new methods of information and general enlightening work could be applied even in our desperate situation, in order to bring to the fellow-citizens’ minds a clear thought that LGBT people in Belarus are mentally normal and meeting the norms of the civilized moral, on the one hand, and that they deserve equal rights with other Belarusians, in order to leave in the same peaceful and calm way, as all the other people in the country do."
