When Meriem Gerasimenko sang the song by the Ukrainian group Okean Elzî she knew she was taking a risk. It's doubtful, however, that she ever imagined being sentenced to jail for singing a song. The owner of the bar got 30 days and another employee 15 for arranging the concert.
Belarus is another backwards terrorist state with deep ties to Russia, where political oppression is the norm. Okean Elzî, with their lead singer Sviatoslav Vakarchiuk, is the most popular band in Ukraine and well-known throughout that part of the world. Sort of Ukraine's version of Coldplay, who they're often compared to and Coldplay actually performed one of their songs last month in Poland.
Source: Libertea/Romania
A court in Belarus arrested for 15 days the singer Meriem Gerasimenko, who performed, on August 3, the song "Obijmi" by the Ukrainian group Okean Elzî, in Minsk, near the Banki-Bottle bar. The owner of the restaurant, Andrei Juk, was arrested for 30 days, reported NovaiaGazeta.eu, an online publication founded in exile by several journalists of the former investigative newspaper in Russia.
A day after the performance, the pro-government Telegram channel ZhS Premium published footage from Meriem's concert with the caption: "Do the Minsk authorities know what is happening in the city center?". Later, another portal close to the power in Minsk, Belarusian Silovik, wrote that the artist had been under the control of the Belarusian security forces for a long time, "who followed the movement of her funds. He agreed to participate in the sponsorship of Ukraine for the purchase of Bayraktar drones".
The artist was detained for 15 days, the patron of the bar was sentenced to 30 days in prison, and an employee will be in prison for 14 days, under the charge of "extremism". Footage of the concert was shared on the Internet along with symbols of support for Ukraine, and ridicule of the Lukashenko regime.
Curious, I looked up the lyrics and found an English translation for Обійми (Obijmi) and it means "Hug Me", part of the lyrics were:
When the day comes,
The war will be over.
There, I lost myself,
Saw it all the way to the bottom.
Hold me, hold me, hold me
So tenderly and never let go.
Hold me, hold me, hold me,
Let your spring come.
Apparently, that counts as "extremism" in Belarus.
Chris Martin saw Ukrainian artist Romario Punch busking on the street and asked him to sing with him. The full video on YouTube.
