PAST EVENT: 25 August: How theatre leads the fight for human rights in Belarus

August 17th, 2011

1 Summerhall, Edinburgh EH9 1QH

Please join Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris in conversation with Natalia Koliada, artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre and spokesperson for Free Belarus Now.

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Sir Tom Stoppard: “The prisoner of conscience figure should have been consigned to history”

March 28th, 2011

Belarusian people are living under “an iron fist in an iron glove,” said Sir Tom Stoppard on the Radio 4 Today programme, after presenting a special commendation to prisoners of conscience in Belarus at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards 2011

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Natalia Koliada on surviving in Europe’s last dictatorship

July 16th, 2010

Banned in their native Belarus and renowned for staging uncensored performances underground, Belarus Free Theatre is a rare voice of dissent in Europe’s last dictatorship. Co-founder Natalia Koliada explains what life is like for her theatre group

The easiest way for me to describe the situation in Belarus is to ask you to imagine… Just imagine, you sit in the evening, you talk to your friend….the next day that friend is kidnapped and killed. It was my husband and his friend Dmitry Zavadsky. They sat and discussed their lives, their wives and their children but the next day he was dead

Now watch

Video: Belarus Free Theatre perform Numbers

Video: Sir Tom Stoppard presents… Belarus Free Theatre