IKG – International Committee of Artists
The International Artists Forum/IKG is appalled and shocked by the unprecedented excesses of violence by the Belarusian security apparatus after the election Sunday on August 9. Thousands of people were arrested, inhumanely treated and maltreated in captivity – since then there has been no trace of many of them.
Despite the brutal violence and arbitrary arrests of more than 7000 people thus far, with which the autocratic president of Belarus has reacted to the peaceful protests against his re-election, people are overcoming their fear and proving that the desire for freedom can no longer be suppressed, in a civil movement that is very broad by now. For decades, freedom of speech, art and press was suppressed in Belarus. Today, the people who were not allowed to say what they want for 26 years are demonstrating. As a reaction to this self-empowerment, resistance is being silenced, killed. Only with the means of his repressive police state does Aljaksandr Lukaschenka still hold on to power.
The freedom of art, which the IKG advocates, has always been the measure of democratic freedom. Human dignity, culture, an open society and democracy are closely linked. The confiscation of entire collections, the blocking of the Internet, the suppression of free, even artistic, creativity are symptoms of barbaric narrow-mindedness, with the fear of humane potential breathing down their necks.
Today, when many of the brave demonstrators wear the confiscated painting EVA by Chaim Sutin on their T-shirts, art becomes visible as a persistent analogy to freedom: in art, the possibility of self-realization crystallizes into form. The Belarusians can no longer be deceived and intimidated.
The IKG supports the democracy movement in Belarus and the demand for the resignation of Alexander Lukashenka. We condemn the violence and the suppression of human rights and appeal to those in power to recognize the signs of the times, to end the repression and to finally make free, fair and transparent elections in Belarus possible.
For the IKG: Dr. Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, President
Video of the filmmaker Jurij Chaschtschewatski to Klaus Staeck
https://youtu.be/HZBBHQJiNR0
Due to the Corona Pandemic, the annual meeting planned for this year in Brno, Czech Republic, is postponed to 2021. (Organisation: Ina Bierstedt, Terezie Petišková).
The IKG general meeting will take place in the large meeting room of ZAK, Zitadelle Berlin-Spandau on 3.10.2020 at 12.00. There will be the possibility for digital participation.