TALLINN: When school started this year for Mikalay in Belarus, the 15-year-old discovered that his teachers and administrators no longer called him by that name. Instead, they referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent.
What’s more, classes at his school — one of the country’s best — are now taught in Russian, not Belarusian, which he has spoken for most of his life.
Belarusians like Mikalay are experiencing a new wave of Russification as Moscow expands its economic, political and cultural dominance to overtake the identity of its neighbor.
It’s not the first time. Russia under the czars and in the era of the Soviet Union imposed its language, symbols and cultural institutions on Belarus. But with the demise of the USSR in 1991, the country began to assert its identity, and Belarusian briefly became the official language, with the white-red-white national flag replacing a version of the red hammer and sickle.
But all that changed in 1994, after Alexander Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm official, came to power. The authoritarian leader made Russian an official language, alongside Belarusian, and did away with the nationalist symbols.
Now, with Lukashenko in control of the country for over three decades, he has allowed Russia to dominate all aspects of life in Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people. Belarusian, which like Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, is hardly heard on the streets of Minsk and other large cities anymore.
Official business is conducted in Russian, which dominates the majority of the media. Lukashenko speaks only Russian, and government officials often don’t use their native tongue.
The country depends on Russian loans and cheap energy and has created a political and military alliance with Moscow, allowing President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops and missiles on its soil, which was used as a staging area for the war in Ukraine.
“I understand that our Belarus is occupied. … And who is the president there? Not Lukashenko. The president is Putin,” said Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize for literature and lives in Germany in effective exile. “The nation has been humiliated and it will be very difficult for Belarusians to recover from this.”
Belarusian cultural figures have been persecuted and hundreds of its nationalist organizations have been closed. Experts say Moscow is seeking to implement in Belarus what the Kremlin intended to do in neighboring Ukraine when the war there began in 2022.
“It is obvious that our children are being deliberately deprived of their native language, history and Belarusian identity, but parents have been strongly advised not to ask questions about Russification,” said Mikalay’s father, Anatoly, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition his last name not be used, for fear of retribution.
“We were informed about the synchronization of the curriculum with Russia this year and were shown a propaganda film about how the Ukrainian special services are allegedly recruiting our teenagers and forcing them to commit sabotage in Belarus,” he said.
Mikalay’s school was one of the few where paperwork and some courses were conducted in Belarusian. In recent years, however, dozens of teachers were fired and the Belarusian-language section of its website vanished.
Human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, convicted in 2023 on charges stemming from his Nobel Peace Prize-winning work, demanded his trial be conducted in Belarusian. The court rejected it and sentenced him to 10 years.
Lukashenko derides his native language, saying “nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian. … There are only two great languages in the world: Russian and English.”
Speaking to Russian state media, Lukashenko recounted how Putin once thanked him for making Russian the dominant language in Belarus.
“I said, ‘Wait, what are you thanking me for? ... The Russian language is my language, we were part of one empire, and we’re taking part in (helping) that language develop,’” Lukashenko said.
Belarus was part of the Russian empire for centuries and became one of 15 Soviet republics after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Daily use of the Belarusian language decreased and continued only in the country’s west and north and in rural areas.
In 1994, about 40 percent of students were taught in Belarusian; it’s now down to under 9 percent.
Although Belarusian, like Russian, is an eastern Slavic language, its vocabulary is considerably different. In 1517, Belarusian publisher Francysk Skaryna was one of the first in eastern Europe to translate the Bible into his native language.
Even speaking Belarusian is seen as a show of opposition to Lukashenko and a declaration of national identity. That played a key role in the mass protests after the disputed 2020 election gave the authoritarian leader a sixth term. In the harsh crackdown that followed, a half-million people fled the country.
“The Belarusian language is increasingly perceived as a sign of political disloyalty and is being abandoned in favor of Russian in the public administration, education, culture and the mass media, upon orders from the hierarchy or out of fear of discrimination,” said Anaïs Marin, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Belarus.
At the same time, “more people want to speak Belarusian, which has become one of the symbols of freedom, but they’re afraid to do it in public,” said Alina Nahornaja, author of “Language 404,” a book about Belarusians who experienced discrimination for speaking their native language.
Like Ukraine, Belarusians had a desire for rapprochement with Europe that accompanied their nationalist sentiment, said Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich.
“But the Kremlin quickly realized the danger and began the process of creeping Russification in Belarus,” he added.
That prompted pro-Russian organizations, joint educational programs and cultural projects to spring up “like mushrooms after the rain — against the backdrop of harsh repressions against everything Belarusian,” Karbalevich said.
Censorship and bans affect not only contemporary Belarusian literature but also its classics. In 2023, the prosecutor’s office declared as extremist the 19th-century poems of Vincent Dunin-Martsinkyevich, who opposed the Russian Empire.
When the Kremlin began supporting Lukashenko against the anti-government protests in 2020, it ensured his loyalty and received carte blanche in Belarus.
“Today, Lukashenko is paying Putin with our sovereignty,” said exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “Belarusian national identity, cultures and language are our strongest weapons against the Russian world and Russification.”
Four cities in Belarus now host a “Russia House” to promote its culture and influence, offering seminars, film clubs, exhibitions and competitions.
“The goal is to plant Russian narratives so that as many Belarusians as possible view Russian as their own,” said analyst Alexander Friedman. “The Kremlin spares no expense and acts on a grand scale, which could be especially effective and dangerous in a situation where Belarus has found itself in information isolation, and there is almost no one left inside the country to resist the Russian world.”
Almost the entire troupe of the Yanka Kupala Theater, the country’s oldest, fled Belarus amid the political crackdown. Its former director, Pavel Latushka, now an opposition figure abroad, said the new management couldn’t recruit enough new actors, and had to invite Russians, “but it turned out that no one knew the Belarusian language.”
“Putin published an article denying the existence of an independent Ukraine back in 2021, and even then we understood perfectly well that he was pursuing similar goals in Belarus,” Latushka said.
“The main course was supposed to be Ukraine,” he added, with a Russified Belarus “as a dessert.”
In Belarus, the native language is vanishing as Russian takes prominence
https://arab.news/vc2zu
In Belarus, the native language is vanishing as Russian takes prominence

- Belarusian cultural figures are being persecuted and hundreds of institutions are being closed
- One prominent secondary school has switched from teaching classes in Belarussian in favor of Russian
Ukrainian parliament approves new government, lawmaker says

KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament voted in favor of a new government under prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko on Thursday, according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
The new cabinet includes two of Svyrydenko’s former deputies — Oleksiy Sobolev as minister of economy, agriculture and environment, and Taras Kachka as a deputy prime minister for European integration — as well as Svitlana Hrynchuk as energy minister.
Man jailed in UK after releasing rats outside mosque

- Edmund Fowler caught on CCTV committing offense 4 times
- Mosque manager: Community members ‘scared of further harassment’
LONDON: A man has been jailed in the UK after being filmed dumping wild rats outside a mosque in the city of Sheffield, The Independent reported on Thursday.
Edmund Fowler, 66, was caught on film unloading the rodents from the back of his car outside Sheffield Grand Mosque. Footage showed the rats running through the mosque’s fence into the grounds of the building.
Fowler did this a further three times between May and June before being charged. He pleaded guilty to four counts of racially aggravated harassment at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court, which sentenced him to 18 months in jail and banned him from going near a mosque for a further 18 months upon release.
The mosque’s manager said in a statement that community members “are scared of further harassment and are now too scared to come to the mosque.”
French court overturns town’s burkini ban after woman threatened with fines

- The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024
- The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach
LONDON: The Marseilles administrative court has reversed a burkini ban on a French Riviera beach after police threatened fines against a teenager and her family for wearing the Muslim swimsuit, The Times reported on Thursday.
The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024, but it was found by the court to be a “serious and illegal breach of fundamental freedoms” following the incident.
The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach.
Two municipal officers spotted her in the sea and ordered her out using whistles. Her family asked what she had done wrong, and the officers said the woman’s garment was “not acceptable,” according to her brother Islan.
The police called for reinforcements. Five gendarmes who arrived later threatened the 18-year-old with fines unless she and her family left the beach.
Islan said the family then left the area. “My sister has taken it badly,” he added. “She is afraid to go out now, does not communicate with other people and avoids talking about what happened.”
The incident led to the Human Rights League seeking a court order overturning the town’s burkini ban.
Over the past decade, about 20 towns and cities on the French coast, including Cannes, have tried to ban the Muslim swimsuit on secular grounds, though almost all the bans were denied or later overturned.
In 2004, France banned Muslim headscarves in schools after MPs decided that the garment violates the secular values of the state education system.
Niqabs and burqas were outlawed in public in 2011 based on concerns that criminals could conceal their identities using the religious garbs.
Protester in UK threatened with arrest by armed police over Palestinian flag

- Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Israel is committing genocide’
- Amnesty International UK describes footage of incident as ‘very concerning’
LONDON: British armed police threatened a peaceful protester with arrest under the Terrorism Act after accusing her of supporting Palestine Action, the activist group that was banned earlier this month.
Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide” at the demonstration in the city of Canterbury, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
Officers told her that she had expressed views supporting Palestine Action. Neither of the signs held by Murton mentioned the group by name.
Murton, who filmed her encounter with the armed police officers, asked whether she supported any banned groups and replied: “I do not.”
One officer told her: “Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that — all come under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government.” He added that the phrase “Free Gaza” expressed support for Palestine Action.
The government’s proscription of the group means it is an offense to express support for it and is punishable by law.
The officer accused Murton of committing that offense, and said she would be arrested unless she provided her name and address, which she did.
Murton told The Guardian: “I don’t see how anything I was wearing, how anything I was displaying, anything I was saying, could be deemed as supportive of the proscribed group.
“It’s terrifying. I was standing there thinking, this is the most authoritarian, dystopian experience I’ve had in this country, being told that I’m committing terrorist offenses by two guys with firearms.
“I ended up giving my details, and I really resent the fact I had to do that because I don’t think that was lawful at all.”
Lawyer’s representing Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, said in court submissions that the group’s proscription would likely produce a “wide chilling effect on speech and assembly of those seeking to speak out against Israel’s serious violations of international law.”
One of the officers who confronted Murton said: “We could have jumped out, arrested you, dragged you off in a van.” The police were “trying to be fair” in dealing with her, he added.
Murton said she was motivated to protest because “day to day, people are getting killed (in Gaza), and I can’t handle that … I can’t handle sitting and doing nothing.”
Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, Tom Southerden, described the footage as “very concerning.”
He added: “We have long criticized UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. This video documents one aspect of exactly the kind of thing we were warning about.”
Magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara

JAKARTA: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province on Thursday, with a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) depth and no tsunami potential, the country’s geophysics agency said.
There were no immediate reports of damage.