State-sponsored Russification discourages use of Belarusian – report

February 2, Pozirk. The policy of discrimination against the Belarusian language and its speakers discourages its use, the International Union of Belarusian Writers said in its report on violations of language rights in the second half of 2023.

The monitoring of open sources alone recorded more than 40 cases of discrimination against the Belarusian language in this period.

Alaksandar Łukašenka and his officials launched a large-scale crackdown on opponents after the contested 2020 presidential election. Authorities outlawed NGOs and initiatives supporting Belarusian culture, including the Union of Belarusian Writers, Belarusian PEN and Francišak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society. The crackdown also affected several private publishers that popularized modern Belarusian literature and translations into Belarusian.

Authorities are pursuing a policy of Russification. The number of Belarusians who consider Belarusian as their mother tongue dropped from 85.6 percent in 1999 to 61.2 percent in 2019, according to census data.

Although 40 percent of secondary schools provide instruction in Belarusian, they are mostly located in rural areas and account for just 10 percent of the total number of students.