MINSK, 7 December (BelTA) – The bill on the genocide of the Belarusian people will be discussed by MPs at the autumn session, Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus Vladimir Andreichenko told reporters, BelTA has learned.
“This bill was prepared on the instruction of the president. Members of the House of Representatives used their legislative power to initiate the process. This work was done together with the General Prosecutor's Office. I think we will scrutinize this bill at the next session of the House of Representatives. Perhaps it will have two readings at once. A lot of work has been done,” Vladimir Andreichenko said.
The speaker noted that the preservation of historical truth is one of the priorities of the state policy of Belarus. “The president of our country has said this more than once. Belarus experienced all the horrors of the Great Patriotic War and lost every third of its resident. In fact, we have no family who was not affected by the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, by passing this bill, we want to remind those revanchist forces once again that punishment is inevitable,” he said.
A round table “Historical memory: Genocide of the Belarusian people” took place in the House of Representatives on 7 December. The round table was meant to take stock of the progress in the criminal investigation into the genocide of residents of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period, the preparation of the bill “On the genocide of the Belarusian people”. The participants of the round table heard out reports on atrocities of Nazi criminals and their accomplices in the territory of Belarus during the war and in the post-war period, about the concealment by Nazi criminals and their accomplices of the evidence of the mass destruction of the civilian population in the occupied territory of Belarus, on the activities of nationalist armed formations in the territory of Belarus in the post-war period, as well as on perpetuating the memory of the victims of the Great Patriotic War.
The round table was attended by representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office, the Defense Ministry, the National Academy of Sciences, the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Research and the National Archives.
