Freedom Lecture by Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski
Programme maker
Veronica Baas
In Cooperation wiht
Anti War Coalition
Supported By
Vfonds
Last year, Belarusian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was released after spending four and a half years in one of Lukashenko’s penal colonies, known for its extreme conditions. For decades, Bialiatski has campaigned for democracy and human rights in Belarus through his organization, Viasna. In the aftermath of the mass protests against president Lukashenko in 2020 and 2021, Bialiatski was arrested and imprisoned. Now, he comes to De Balie.
In his Freedom Lecture, Bialiatski will speak about the ongoing struggle for human rights and democratic freedoms in Belarus, drawing on his personal experience as an activist and political prisoner put to forced labour. What is the current situation in Belarus, and what future awaits the country? The lecture will be followed by a talk by philosopher and feminist thinker Olga Shparaga, who will reflect on the role of feminist solidarity, care, and artistic resistance in the Belarusian democracy movement.
The evening will also feature an audiovisual performance combining live music and literary testimony built around the essays by Maxim Znak, a Belarusian lawyer and writer. Arrested in 2020 for his role in Belarus’s democratic movement, Znak spent more than five years in prison. While detained, he secretly wrote The Zekamerone, a memoir smuggled out of prison. The performance offers a preview of a large-scale participatory art performance A Percussion Piece that will take place at the East NDSM Wharf on 19 September, organized in solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners.
Speakers
Ales BialiatskiHuman rights campaigner
Olga ShparagaPhilosopher and feminist thinker
Large-scale participatory art performance in solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners, makenoise.art
Mohammad Rasoulof is considered one of the most important modern-day Iranian filmmakers. In his films, he exposes the inner workings of the Iranian regime and shows how political oppression and corruption shape the everyday lives of Iranians. Rasoulof’s films themselves have also been marked by repression. During this edition of The State of the World,
The New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe on his approach to reporting. What draws him to figures from the criminal underworld? How do you write journalistic true-crime stories without slipping into sensationalism? And how does he recognize a great story in the first place? Few nonfiction writers have attained such stature that they appear as
