MINSK, 25 May (BelTA) – The state flag of a country is a collective symbol of the nation, BelTA learned from Chairman of the Education, Culture, and Science Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Igor Marzalyuk at a session of the lower chamber of the Belarusian parliament on 25 May.
The MP said: “The state flag of a country is a collective symbol of the nation. In our case it is the symbol of an all-Belarusian consensus, which was adopted at a referendum in 1995. For particularly advanced people I would like to remind about results of the referendum and about results of an opinion poll held in 2018. In 2018 13.2% of those polled spoke in favor of the white-red-white flag while 69.4% spoke in favor of the national state Belarusian flag. I am not even going to refer to social studies of 2020 and 2021, which testify that two thirds of the citizens support the symbols that are present in this chamber.”
The MP drew attention to the fact that Latvia is a country where murderers of Belarusians – SS troops – are honored virtually at the official level. “They are called heroes and fighters for independent Latvia. Police goons, who slaughtered virtually the entire northern Belarus, the entire Vitebsk Oblast. We have yet to recover from the population loss. They dreamed of a great Latvia stretching all the way to Polotsk. Only two nations had Belarusians as slaves – Germans and Latvians. They dared write about it in their newspapers and publish prices. All of it has been documented. By the way, all of it was done under the flag, which is now the state flag of Latvia. This is why when Latvian officials dare touch our flag, it is more than offensive behavior. It is a manifestation of vandalism. It is an outrage over common sense, a spit in the face of millions of Belarusians. It may sound pompous but it is an attempt on our sovereignty, on the sovereign will of our Belarusian nation,” he noted.
Igor Marzalyuk stressed that only the Belarusian nation through its collective will, which is expressed at a referendum, can change colors of the flag. “Nobody else can. Nobody else can replace the flag on the flag pole. Impudent foreign officials just have to remember it. There are things that are absolute. There are things that are determined only here and only by us. Without foreign supervisors, without foreign money, without foreign will. We have our sovereign will, the will of our people. Of those, who live and work here, those, who build a real Belarus, not a virtual one, those who take responsibility for the country just like you and I do,” he stated.
