Minsk - Care for viewers was the sole reason why Ukrainian state flags were taken from viewers at a recent concert given by the Ukrainian group Okean Elzy in Minsk, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said.
“According to the Interior Ministry, the same would happen to our flags if a concert had a full house. People here love Okean Elzy!” Dmitry Mironchik, the head of the information department of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, said in the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Twitter account, responding to a question from his Ukrainian counterpart Yevhen Perebyinis, press officer of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, who said on Twitter: “Belarusian Foreign Ministry. Colleagues, is that normal? Is the Ukrainian flag banned in Belarus?”
Perebyinis posted on Twitter a link to a video on YouTube showing a Belarusian police officer taking a Ukrainian flag from a woman.
Mironchik told Interfax, citing information received from the law enforcement agencies, that over 14,000 viewers had attended the concert. Because the concert had a full house, the police asked viewers especially to leave the flags before entering.
