Dmitri Borodko: “…So that these vermin might know: we remember everything and we are not broken”

The coordinator of the civil campaign "European Belarus" Dmitri Borodka, commented on the sentence given to Alexander Ostroshchenkov:

“Sasha is one of those persons called “a man of flint”. We have been in quite a few scrapes together; Sasha is a real man. During the demonstrations in Belarus and in Ukraine’s “orange revolution” Sasha was always at the forefront; and not so much a professional as a civic duty pulled him forward.

I remember when the column of demonstrators in Ukraine was blocked by trucks with sand; people climbed on them, but further along were standing “golden eagles” with one goal: not to let people through at any price. A mild panic started, because then they said, “If you go ahead – we will open fire. There were a lot of people, a bustle started and nobody knew what to do, but on the dump truck over it all, like a monument towered the tall figure of Otroshchenkov, who waved a flag and at the same time by phone passed on information on-line. And when men in plain clothes took us off the train Kiev-Minsk on a winter’s night and drove us to an unknown destination, Sasha again was not taken aback. We then began to yell at the top of my lungs a song, so that “they” would not hear how Vladimir Kobets was talking on the phone, which he managed to hide. There are dozens of such stories. And Sasha was always on top.

The fact that they have (now) dealt with him in such a way, suggests that these vermin are afraid. They fear people like Otroshchenkov, Sannikov, Bondarenko, Statkevich and Lebedko. All their vaulted power rests on fear.

How can we who remain at liberty help the political prisoners? There is a lot we can do. We can help with money to the families. We can disseminate information about our heroes. We can go on protests on 16th of each month. We can, at least once a month leave our domestic chores and cares, and devote that day, or even one hour, to those who are not with us, as an act of solidarity. What would these vermin know? We remember everything, and we are not broken. In order to remind Belarusians, Europeans, all the world – we continue to fight!”