Student Activist Expelled for Going to France
The hottest issue (pun intended) on Belarusian blogs today is the expulsion of Tatsiana Khoma 
from the university. She is the first Belarusian (in fact, the first Eastern European) to have been elected to the Council of the biggest European students’ organization ESIB. Today she was informed that she was expelled from the Belarus State Economic University (BSEU) immediatly, and that she also has to leave her room at the dormitory today. The official reason for this action is the fact that she did not inform the university beforehand that she would go abroad (this is forbidden under a new Lukashenka’s decree about students). ESIB is now asking the European Universities Association (EUA) to revise the membership of BSEU, and all the universities around Europe to suspend their cooperation with BSEU.
November 25th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
P.S.
Norwegians are collecting online “signatures” in her support:
* http://www.stlweb.no/signatures.asp
A letter from ESIB:
* http://www.esib.org/news/051125tatsiana.pdf
November 26th, 2005 at 9:48 am
Bah :( And Im sure it has “nothing” to do with her being elected for ESIB. Didnt know its now forbidden to travel abroad for students without notifying the university… That’s just… I dunno it would make me very uncomfortable… at this rate people have to write statements when they’re going outside for groceries :( Am going to cross-post this on multiple forums asking people to cross-post it as well and sign that norwegian page in her support.
November 26th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
> now forbidden to travel abroad for students without notifying the university…
That supposedly was a good law aimed to combat human trafficking. Now we can see how it’s going to be applied in reality.
November 26th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
It never was supposed as just “human-traffick combating” law. Everything, including laws’ titles is hypocricy here. Human-traffick in Belarus easily bypasses laws due to corruption. Real reasons to issue these laws was:
- to limit students’ travel abroad (to “save” them from ”
poisonous Western influences”)
- to revamp the whole market of agencies sending young people abroad (to make this market fully controllable by the state)
Before recent laws on “human-trafficking” many universities in Belarus were helping their students to find a seasonal work abroad, helped them with visas etc. It was a rather good-working system. And now it’s broken. For example, my university was sending about 600 students abroad every year - through HOPS and Concordia seasonal-work permit schemes.
This spring the system was simply ruined. By March/April our students had already got their visas, work-permits, some had already bought plane/bus tickets - and were ready to pass exams 2-3 months earlier and go to work. Then the law was issued and the university administration said: “We won’t let you go now. Wait till July, pass your exams, then go wherever you want. And come back in September. We don’t care that you miss your job-opportunity and will have only 2 months to recouperate your expenditures.” So some people have lost lots of money on re-arranging their visas, tickets, work-permits… or finding some illegal agency that could help them to find another job.
Needless to say, that next year it’s gonna be even harder to go abroad - the university is not allowed th assist students in finding jobs, aranging visas etc. From now on, students wanting to earn some money on, let’s say, English strawberry fields, will have to go to state-allowed agencies - but there are about just 10 of them! and most of these approved agencies are connected to state youth political organisation BRSM (that’s a good way to finance it, right?). So they’ll go to some illegal agency, pay them much more money than in recent years - and no one will guarantee them that the job’s gonna be OK and they won’t get into “slavery”.
While i’m writing, one of my students called me saying she’s shocked by new rules (that spring law got further amends this week!) and that she definetely will quit study next spring (having one more year to go) and will go to England and wait there until something’s gonna change in Belarus. By the way, her boyfriend already made this - because otherwise the univerity didn’t let him go.
… and you know what? These things i’m telling you here - according to this week’s amends to Criminal Code, i can be fined & fired or put in jails for this :) … :(
November 26th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Hi, Ambiont! I’m really glad to see you here. ;)
This is a very insightful comment. Of course, I’m quite aware of all that, and I know what’s going on. But I guess it will be very interesting to our English-speaking readers who don’t have any first-hand experience living inside Belarus.
November 26th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
> i’m telling you here - according to this week’s amends to Criminal Code, i can be fined & fired or put in jails for this
I’m shocked, though not surprised. I’ll probably make a separate entry about that.
And you know what, I might sound a bit too optimistic, but I believe that the same way as BSEU doesn’t yet know the kind of protest wave that Taciana Khoma’s expulsion might start, Lukashenka doesn’t realize that those amendments to the Criminal code really might cause a huge wave of protests abroad.
Though I can’t predict whether this protest will have any impact inside Belarus. After all, Lukashenka has built an air-tight system that is pretty well insulated against outside influences (not counting the Russian side of the border and the cheap Russian gas).
November 26th, 2005 at 8:18 pm
P.S. Although it happenned on Friday afternoon, the information already got spread pretty quickly, in many languages:
* Władze białoruskie walczą z 21-letnią studentką (Gazeta.pl! Polish)
* Vitryska studenters rättigheter kränks (SFS, Swedish)
* Kršenje človekovih pravic članice ESIB v Belorusiji (KSS-Loka, Slovenian)
* LSVb en ISO komen op voor rechten studente Wit-Rusland (LSVB, Dutch)
* No Baltkrievijas universitātes izslēdz studenti viņas dalības Eiropas studentu organizācijā dēļ (LSA, Latvian)
November 26th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
I guess it’s because today we [should] celebrate International Information Day (or whatever Suśvietny Dzień Infarmacyi is called in English) :)
Sorry, another lenghty comment is coming…
The “protest wave” could’ve been much more powerful - but very few belarusian students knew about the incident. Similar incidents happen all over the country in every univercity all the time — and they pass “unnoticed”. (Tatiana is a member of ESIB - that’s why this story got European coverage.)
The problem is the lack of information: young people outside Minsk or other big cities don’t have access to it - especially students in province. Speaking with my students i hear the same words all the time: “Oh, we know nothing about this or that! We don’t watch TV or read newspapers, cause we sick and tired of propaganda and Lu”. They don’t read independent newpapers either - cause they’re not sold freely in every town and a student gonna have big problems if such a paper is found in his/her room. The internet is too expensive, so it can’t be used as a source of news.
So they live in info_vacuum and don’t even hope that someone will support them in case of pressure/expell. That’s why most of students will never act - nobody wants to be expelled like Tatiana. And that’s why administrative pressure is so effective in such vacuum.
When a colledge teacher from Baranovichi was fired last week for taking his students to Milinkevich’s press-conference - it also passed almost unnoticed. Milinkevich said he’s planning to establish some foundation to help repressed students & teachers i’m sceptical that it’s gonna happen. But such support could change a lot! And Europe could help here. Establishing a net of information and consulting units to support and protect “ordinary protesters” is much more useful than spending money on some radio-station that nobody listens to or financing some opposition leaders who are well past their “sell-by date”.
November 28th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
Wow, lots went on here while I was away. Those are some very very interesting comments you posted ambiont, thank you!
> But I guess it will be very interesting to our English-speaking readers who don’t have any first-hand experience living inside Belarus
That would be me :) Actually im aware of all of most things. I try to find as much as I can but the information vacuum you are talking about is not just national, but international as well. My sister (she lives in Minsk) asks me questions on various topics… simple things about news reports or just sports… as she simply is unable to find information about it… but also I often find it incredibly difficult to find the information I need. And a nice practical example would be the Belarusian embassy in the Netherlands… they do have a website yes, however since the last time they updated it… they moved 3 times. The address is invalid, news outdated, pretty much everything can be ignored. It took me 2 hours to find the address (excluding the 15 hours of googling to find a reasonably updated version of their webpage)
> Establishing a net of information and consulting units to support and protect “ordinary protesters” is much more useful than spending money on some radio-station that nobody listens to or financing some opposition leaders who are well past their “sell-by date”.
I agree with you, but even the little bits are better than doing nothing.
Side note, that signature list has almost passed 3000 signatures from all over the world. You should see the countries that signed, its amazing!
April 6th, 2006 at 3:57 am
Thanks for reporting the Taciana-Story. Just a small remark to you your comment that she is the “first person from eastern countries” elected to the Executive Committee of ESIB - the national unions of students in europe. Of course it depends what you define under eastern, but aswell students from the following countries (only the persons I can remember) got elected in the past years to the highest European Students Body: Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia (Chair/President until 2005), Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland. Unfortunately neither the Ukraine nor Moldova have yet a member organisation in ESIB, so Estonia is beside Belarus (and maybe Latvia) as far east as we could go :-). Best wishes, from a ESIB-Delegate of the Swiss Students Union
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Thank you…
Nice posts indeed
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