MINSK, 21 May (BelTA) - The revival of Nazi ideology in Belarus is unacceptable, Sergei Rachkov, Chairman of the International Affairs and National Security Commission of the Council of the Republic, said as he took part in the meeting of BelTA's Expert Community project to discuss the laws to prevent the rehabilitation of Nazism and to counter extremism.
"The laws are important. During the events of 2020, we saw the attempts by the destructive forces to use the ideas of Nazism to rock the boat in our country. Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that such events are taking place in our country that suffered the worst during the Great Patriotic War, having lost 3 million people," Sergei Rachkov said.
According to him, no one could have imagined that Belarus would one day have to regulate on the legislative level the problems of preventing the rehabilitation of Nazism, glorification of Nazi criminals and their accomplices. "Nevertheless, in the parliament we decided that such a law is needed," the senator said. “I want to note that there were discussions, different opinions. One of the ideas was to integrate the topic of preventing the rehabilitation of Nazism into the law to counter extremism. But the majority believed that we should have a separate law, which will give a serious signal to the society that such activities are unacceptable in Belarus. That's why we drew up a separate law.”
The law against the rehabilitation of Nazism was developed in accordance with the model law of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly "On the inadmissibility of actions to rehabilitate Nazism, glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices". "At the stage of drafting the law, we came to the view that the law should have this ideological function and clearly state that in our society the revival of Nazi ideology is unacceptable. The law clearly bans the rehabilitation of Nazism, the glorification of Nazi criminals. I would especially like to note that the law does not shy away from collaborators, those who sided with the occupiers during the Great Patriotic War, who participated in the genocide of the Belarusian people," he added.
