On June 30, 2021, the German Embassy in Minsk received a request from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry to stop the activities of the Goethe Institute and the organization DAAD within four weeks.

The reference of “Our House”:

The Goethe Institute is a German non-governmental organization whose goal is to popularize the German language, culture, and traditions. The Institute has been working in Belarus since 1993. In the Institute, German language courses worked, seminars for German teachers, exhibitions, film screenings, concerts were held. The Goethe Institute operates in 97 countries around the world.

A spokeswoman for the organization in Munich, Jessica Kraatz Magri, responding to a question from concerned people, said that ” … the online language courses offered by the Institute will continue to be available to everyone, regardless of their location.”

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has been working in Belarus since 2003. DAAD aims at expanding international cooperation in the academic and scientific environment. It is the largest foundation in the world that organizes the exchange of students and scientists. According to his scholarship programs, many Belarusians have already visited Germany, including the Nobel laureate in literature, Sviatlana Alexievich.

DAAD associates Minsk’s stupid and groundless demand to curtail the organization’s activities in Belarus with the EU sanctions against Belarus. DAAD has already contacted all participants of its programs in Belarus and urged them to leave the country. “First of all, we are talking about six lecturers who have so far taught at universities in Belarus,” DAAD said.

One can’t help but conclude that the occupation authorities are deliberately trying to expel the entire conglomerate of foreign and international companies, centres and associations from the country. Moreover, we are talking about organizations engaged in serious things: human rights and charitable activities, education or education, like the Goethe Institute.

And on July 22, 2021, the Minsk City Executive Committee decided to liquidate the “Research Center of the Institute of Privatization and Management”, which had been operating in Belarus since 1993. This institute is on a list of more than 40 organizations which “Our House” published earlier.

Such “intellectual sabotage” is aimed solely at undermining the moral foundations and civic education in Belarus. The purpose is to restrict the flow of educational and educational information going to the people.

The ideal citizen for a usurper of power in Belarus is a weak-willed trembling serf who unconditionally believes everything state propaganda inspires him. It is a person who does not seek to learn new things from alternative sources, who lives “from payday to payday” on the principle of “it’s neither my headache nor my piece of cake”, prefers “values” equal to the bread and circuses.

ICCI “Our House” categorically condemns this and expresses extreme concern about such trends. We call on conscious citizens of Belarus to express their disapproval of such destruction of culture and education in every possible way and to be in solidarity with people operating in these areas. After all, when the horizons of civil society narrow, such a society quickly goes blind and degrades.

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