Recently, Valleri Robinson, Associate Professor of Theatre at UIUC, has published two articles related to the political situation in Belarus. The first article was a review of a performance of Insulted. Belarus. that occurred over Zoom in November 2020. The performance was a part of an international reading series and was a reading of the play where the actors used small props, black and white filters, and their own backgrounds for immersion. The play details the brutal crackdown on the 2020 pro-democracy movement in Belarus. The review can be found here.
Professor Robinson’s second article is an op-ed entitled “Freedom of assembly under threat” that was published in the Chicago Tribune. This article discusses a demonstration of women in Minsk in September 2021 and compares the arrest of protestors in Belarus under a law that makes peaceful assembly illegal to new laws in the United States which make chanting, music, and any assembly that could be viewed as a potentially dangerous illegal. Professor Robinson emphasizes the importance of protecting democracy at home like the U.S. government does abroad, such as the condemning of Alexander Lukashenko by U.S. Representatives. The article can be found here.