Siarhei Dubavets: I'll be back in PEN Center, when sanity returns there

Writer and journalist Siarhei Dubavets announced he would leave the Belarusian PEN Center. The occasion was the press release of the organization since their latest meeting. The text referred to "discrimination" against Russian writers.

In an interview to Euroradio, Dubavets explained that he considers himself both the Belarusian-speaking and the Russian-speaking writer. And he feels no "discrimination" whatsoever.

Dubavets: "No discrimination was mentioned at the PEN meeting. Am I a schizophrenic, if I consider myself both a Belarusian-speaking and a Russian-speaking writer? Does it mean that one writer in me suppresses another writer? I do not consider myself an idiot and so I am leaving this esteemed organization."

The writer says that he would return to the Belarusian PEN center, when sanity returns there.

Dubavets said that such statements of the respected international organization can lead one to believe that there really is some kind of discrimination. Although in reality there is not.

Photos - svaboda.org

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