There is this very scandalous group of Ukrainian feminists called FEMEN (I blogged about it here) that uses some very strange means to promote feminism. For some reason, women who belong to this organization believe it’s a good idea to run around half naked in support of feminism. I think they are clueless and their activism is counterproductive. However, now is the moment to stand in solidarity with these activists because they have been subjected to really horrible treatment by anti-feminist fanatics in Byelorussia. I’m not seeing any articles on this subject in the feminist blogosphere, which is why I decided to write about it and share what has been happening to feminists in Byelorussia.
Byelorussia is one of the former republics of the Soviet Union. It suffered horribly during World War II. I think it was probably the area of the USSR that sustained the greatest damage during the war. When the Chernobyl catastrophe took place, the wind blew most of the radiation towards Byelorussia. The entire population has been affected by the nuclear tragedy.
As if all this suffering wasn’t enough, this miserable republic has been cursed with a dictator of well-known fascist leanings. Since 1994, Lukashenko, a great admirer of Hitler, has ruled Byelorussia. International observers state that there has never been a single even marginally fair election in the country. Candidates who tried to run against the dictator have been brutalized by the police and arrested. Journalists who tried to publish even mild criticisms of Lukashenko have been found murdered. Or not found at all.
The Ukrainian feminists went to Byelorussia on Monday to protest the mistreatment of the country’s numerous political prisoners. After they conducted their peaceful protest, they left and headed to the bus station to take a bus home. There, they were approached by a group of men (it is obvious from a variety of details that these men worked for the Byelorussian KGB), taken into the woods, stripped naked, and beaten. Then, the attackers cut off their hair and doused them with a sticky bright green substance that is very hard to remove and that leaves long-lasting stains. After that, the women were feathered. They were forced to hold slogans with swastikas. All of this was recorded with a camcorder.
After the Ukrainian feminists made their ordeal public, the leader of the Byelorussian KGB stated that “they react to everything like women” and refused to take the matter seriously.
I have noticed that my posts about the violations of human rights in the FSU are very unpopular. I understand that the reason why people don’t want to read them is not indifference. It is, rather, a sense of impotence. Nobody knows how the situation can be helped. I believe, however, that knowledge and awareness are the best – and the only – ways to help. If people in other countries know what’s going on, if they are aware of the facts, they are already doing a lot.
Sorry for spoiling the pre-Christmas mood, but this is important. I was going to promise only to write about happy things during the Christmas festivities, but there is another huge protest against the Putin regime planned in Moscow for tomorrow and I can’t avoid blogging about that.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think you’re right about the sense of impotence — I know I feel that whenever I read about something horrible happening anywhere that I don’t know how I can help.
But I also think, if you are measuring “popular” posts by either the number of comments, or the number of separate pageviews, I read most of your posts just by coming to your blog homepage. Since you don’t do that annoying thing where bloggers hide all but the first paragraph or two of a post behind a cut, I can read all your posts without clicking on each one individually. (I only click on a post to see the comment thread, which would explain why there are lower pageview counts on posts with few or no comments!)
Anyway, I value your posts on Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet countries; I read things from you that I’d never get from a US newspaper.
And that’s awful about FEMEN … are there any English-language news articles about what happened to those protesters?
LikeLike
Thank you, Lindsay! It’s good to know that readers find value in these posts.
There are English-speaking sources that have reported this story. This one, for example:
“Schevchenko was one of the three Femen activists who were kidnapped and abused after their topless protest in front of the KGB headquarters in Minsk. According to her and her colleagues, the women were kidnapped, blinded folded and driven to the woods, where they were tortured by the men, who they believe were Belarusian KGB officers. During the ride, the men interrogated them, asking who invited the women to Minsk and if they got any funds from the European Union to finance the protest.
“They poured green antiseptic on our heads, and then cut off some of my hair with a knife,” Shevchenko said at the press conference, showing her green colored hair.
Oxana Shachko, another activist who was also arrested, said the women feared they would be sexually assaulted: “Then they told us to take our clothes off from the waist down and to turn around. This was the most horrible moment because we thought they’re going to rape us now.””
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11158563-femen-topless-protesters-will-return-to-belarus-despite-being-beaten-and-abused
LikeLike
I was actually anticipating you blogging about this after I read about it on the BBC. It’s horrific to know that this kind of state-sponsored brutality goes unpunished and largely unreported, I didn’t see a single iota of information about it on any American news sites while I was here. That’s also why, like Lindsay, I value your posts on the situation in Russia and FSU nations, because where else would I get the information?
LikeLike
Thank you, Leah Jane! Now I feel better about unleashing these posts on people. 🙂
LikeLike