14 ms·

Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of Belarusian embassy

240 points by johnnycerberus 5y ago

koheripbal 5y ago
While these word/name changes make people on social media feel good, they achieve less than nothing in real-world benefits. They are actually counter-productive, in my opinion by distracting attention away from meaningful action.
- eu 5y ago
  What could a district mayor do?
  - V-2 5y ago
    Hopefully something meaningful and productive for the inhabitants of the city
    - yreg 5y ago
      Renaming a street to make a political statement obviously doesn't prevent the municipality from doing something meaningful and productive for the inhabitants of the city. We don't live in a turn based strategy and the mayor did not spend her action. She doesn't have to wait for the next turn to do something else.
    - kergonath 5y ago
      This is a fallacy. People can make more than one decision in a year. Particularly large cities' councils, which are tasked with running amazingly complex administrative and economic systems. So unless there are indications that other decisions were delayed or scrapped because they want to change the street name, this is irrelevant.
      - koheripbal 5y ago
        Resources are finite. One of the main resource limitations for leaders is time. This is a waste of the mayor's time.
        yreg 5y ago
        You are assuming that had the mayor skipped this proposal (which sounds like very little work to me), she would have done something else for thew city instead. Real world doesn't work like that. If you are familiar with Bucharest municipal politics, by all means criticise that they are not doing a good enough job, or that they handled some things wrong. But without context it's nonsensical to attack someone the way you do. Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that.
        maest 5y ago
        > Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that. Technically, the argument is that they are doing less work than their hypothetical counterpart who is identical in all respects, but did not spend time on making the name change proposal. Clearly this is almost nonfalsifiable, so a difficult argument to take seriously.
      - V-2 5y ago
        It's not a fallacy, unless you take it out of context. The context was as follows: the grand-grandparent comment pointed out that this change achieves nothing. The grandparent comment didn't challenge it, but asked rhetorically what [else] a mayor could do. This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me. Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least. As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't. There is still some limit, though (obviously larger than 1, but nevertheless finite), and renaming a street always comes at a substantial cost - both for the city and private entities. Cost associated with the need for changing street name signs, changing documents etc. Maybe that cost is worth paying, but an ad absurdum line of argument isn't something that could convince me of it.
boomskats 5y ago
Misleading title. First sentence of the linked article: > The street in the Romanian capital Bucharest where the Belarusian embassy is located could be renamed in honour of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich as a gesture of solidarity after his dramatic arrest, a district mayor has said.
- rocgf 5y ago
  Indeed, the title is absolutely wrong. This is not a done deal, it is just a proposal.
- okamiueru 5y ago
  For future reference, it's probably a good idea to also include what the title you are referring to. HN is notorious for changing the title so many times and frequently that its hard to know whether the title changed since the post was made.
  - johnnycerberus 5y ago
    I'm the OP. The title was that "Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street". Mayor of the 1st district is sending the proposal this morning to the General Mayor at the city hall, the talks are official and they are undergoing. The street name hasn't been changed yet.
  - bachmeier 5y ago
    > HN is notorious for changing the title so many times and frequently That's mostly because people regularly submit with misleading/false titles.
    - Macha 5y ago
      Mods are pretty happy to change titles if they feel it makes it clearer too, and have less than a 100% success rate at that. e.g. this topic they changed "Deno 1.10" to "Deno 1.1" in the title: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127316 Which are not the same things. Also I've seen attempts to clarify actors involved, but occasionally making it muddier. e.g. this one removes the fact that the response was from a Wireguard developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477 Or once or twice, just wrong. I'm not saying this is malicious, but the criteria for getting titles changed is definitely more loose than "title is false/misleading".
nob0dyasked 5y ago
Why is this irrelevant story on HN? Some irrelevant person posts something inconsequential on FB, yet we push it to a technology news board?
Jughashvili 5y ago
Увы, такое бывает, когда работаешь на подрыв своего государства с иностранными спецслужбами. Заслуженное наказание нашло предателя. Батька молодец.
msoloi 5y ago
hey! that's my hometown, nice to see that the mayor I voted for is considering to do something to address this crisis
Macha 5y ago
Similar past event: The British embassy in Iran once moved its entrance as the street it was originally on was renamed after Bobby Sands, IRA hunger striker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,_Tehran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,...
throwaway4good 5y ago
I live in a city where city council politicians regularly proposes to change the name of “Israel square” to “Palestine square”. Fairly idiotic in my opinion.
- tokai 5y ago
  Why is it idiotic?
  - yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
    Because that particular conflict dates back over a thousand years, both sides have legitimate grievances, and the politics and consequential conflict are incredibly complex despite what propagandists on either side would have you believe. Such a reductionist statement by some local council would be counterproductive.
  - throwaway4good 5y ago
    Let's discuss naming the street with the Chinese embassy "Falun Gong street" and the one with the American embassy "Julian Assange street" instead focusing on keeping our streets clean of rubbish and our schools well run. It is idiotic because local politicians should not do foreign policy, and if they try they likely will show themselves as incompetent fools.
    - smcl 5y ago
      I think you are overestimating the time and effort ... 1. involved in proposing changing a street name 2. spent by the mayor directly on the activities you mention
      - throwaway4good 5y ago
        It is not so much what they spend their time on, it is more how they misdirect and manipulate public opinion. Like: sure I am an incompetent and corrupt mayor but let’s talk about the Israel / Palestine - isn’t it just horrible how the Israelis are bombing children?
proxysna 5y ago
Czech's done the same thing to Russian embassy. Renamed the square that embassy is on to Boris Nemtsov square. Petty? yeah. Good? yeah.
- vincnetas 5y ago
  Lithuania has done the same in Vilnius. Square in front of RU embassy got renamed to Boris Nemtsov square after his murder in Moscow. Not sure if it had any direct effect, though happy that a memory of such aggressions gets persisted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
  - V-2 5y ago
    Warsaw named one of its roundabouts after the Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev - similarly in Lviv (Ukraine).
    - f6v 5y ago
      Nothing says “Let’s try to resolve the issues between our states” like naming a street after someone who’s considered a terrorist by your neighbor. Has no practical value, no historical significance for your city. Just to piss someone off. This is a kindergarten-level politics.
      - vincnetas 5y ago
        All Lithuanian liberty activists killed by soviets during occupation were labeled as "terrorists" by USSR. Should LT treat them as terrorists because USSR labeled them so? By the way there is at least one statue of Lithuanian liberty fighting "terrorist" in Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas
      - martin_a 5y ago
        How are you going to deal with authoritarian states which give a fuck about nothing?
sebow 5y ago
While that's a sensible gesture, Clotilde Armand should focus on the garbage and rats on the streets of her sector (yes, really), rather than these moves that are usually made at "higher courts"(US,UK,France usually). I hate to switch the subject but yes, it's a distraction from the fact that the mayor elections have very big holes and there's almost proof of corruption and fraud during the counting of votes (after which she became mayor). To stay on topic: I doubt Minsk really cares about this.Lukashenko is neither pro-west nor pro-russia really, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in power by all means necessary.
aorth 5y ago
Editorialized title on HN submission. Actual title on Reuters: Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of Belarusian embassy
lamp987 5y ago
A bit childish IMO
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  …And Lukashenko's actions aren't?
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    They are actually murderous.
littlestymaar 5y ago
There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach. (given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish)
- alapshin 5y ago
  > There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. It's pointless when it is not backed by real sanctions. It does nothing to punish brazen actions of autocrats while giving them fuel for propaganda. > Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach. How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. If you want to help ordinary people - simplify immigration. > Given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    > How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. Sure, but these have a limited reach and they are usually being done very early in the sanction process. But once the targets have no more estate in the Western world, there is not much you can do. > Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions. But that's a really limited success at the cost of hundreds of lives, which makes it morally very difficult to justify.
- f6v 5y ago
  As pointless and stupid as taking down the flag of a sovereign state and replacing it with something else. What you get is more enemies and hate.
  - vincnetas 5y ago
pydry 5y ago
RT's current approach seems to be to focus on Protasevich's alleged role as a propagandist for the neo nazi azov brigades in donbass and, of course, the whole Snowden/Morales affair. Western news media outlets, by contrast, seem to be lionizing the journalist's role in the Belarus protests, but at some point I imagine they will have address the above two points. Silence is too awkward. It is interesting to diff the propaganda from both sides here, especially since domestic propaganda value appears to have been a key component of why Lukashenko chose to do this.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  Both sides do propaganda, but where would you prefer to live if you were a dissident?
  - lazyjones 5y ago
    Do you get assigned the role of dissident at birth? Or do we rather choose it based on living in places with particular regimes? A more valid question would be: where would you rather live if you were glorifying Azov brigades? The answer would apparently be: the West. And you know where Snowden chose to live and why. So it appears that people more aligned with my (and generally accepted) values tend to prefer Russia and its allies, with a good reason.
    - vbezhenar 5y ago
      Do you think that Snowden prefers to live in Russia because of his values or because of his safety?
      - lazyjones 5y ago
        Because his values made him a dissident in the West, where he is in danger.
        vbezhenar 5y ago
axiosgunnar 5y ago
> Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street This is not just another case of an editorialized title on HN. It‘s much worse. The EU has been accused precisely that it won't actually do anything against the arrest of Protasevich, besides posting angry tweets for a few days. The title of the article suggest it has actually done „something“. But in reality it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook, giving the impression that something was done!
- 4ad 5y ago
  > it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook Well that "guy" is the mayor of one of the capital's districts, and she used to be a member of the european parliament. No idea if anything will come from this proposal, but it's not some guy trolling on Facebook.
  - axiosgunnar 5y ago
    It literally is some gal trolling on Facebook. Even if it were Merkel and Sarkozy tweeting, it is literally just tweeting. They could be actually implementing the actions they want, but instead they chose to just pretend to be doing something.
- fogihujy 5y ago
  This proposal (which I find hilarious) is from local politicians in Bucharest and not from the EU. There are already _a lot_ of economic sanctions aimed at Belarus and each time new ones are imposed, it'll be successively harder to do more the next time. There's only so much that can be done -- The EU has already pretty much delivered Belarus into the hands of Russia and the EU isn't going to try direct intervention. Nobody wants a confrontation with Russia or a repeat of the Ukraine situation.
- pydry 5y ago
  The EU is kind of stuck. Most of the options at its disposal would likely be made to drive resentment by Belarussians towards the EU and push them into Putin's arms. This is in direct opposition to the EU's strategic goals - it wants Belarussians have a favorable view of the EU and an unfavorable view of Russia. They've actually been doing fairly well at that so far. On the other hand, if they do nothing they look weak. RT and domestic Belarussian propaganda outlets are all geared up to tell Belarussians that they won't be able to get their medicine because the EU doesn't like that we used the same unconventional methods they used to get Snowden to arrest a domestic neo nazi insurgent (that being the line they're going with now) oh and by the way "they named a street after their hero". I don't think there are many good options here. Indeed, doing nothing, galling as it might be, might be the lesser evil.
fiftyacorn 5y ago
Glasgow named the street where the south African embassy was as Nelson Mandela square during apartheid. It was a dig at both south Africa and thatcher
michaelt 5y ago
This is something of a tradition [1] - for example, the British Embassy in Tehran has its street name changed to Bobby Sands Avenue in the 1980s; Glasgow renamed a street adjoining the South African consulate to Nelson Mandela Place during apartheid; in 2018 Washington DC renamed the street housing the Russian Embassy as Boris Nemtsov Street; and so on. While this might not accomplish much in real terms, I do find it hilarious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_names_changed_around_diplomatic_mission_buildings_for_political_reasons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_names_changed_a...
- peteretep 5y ago
  I suspect most embassy staff are -- like the ones from Western nations -- generally pretty liberal, and probably secretly fairly supportive of this.
  - js8 5y ago
    Um, probably not. I just heard an interview with a journalist, Jolyon Naegele, a Western correspondent in Czechoslovakia in the 80s (who worked for Radio Free Europe). He talked about how Czechoslovak secret services bothered him (often in a very crude, stupid ways) and also how they, in some sense, were afraid of him, since they assumed that he is a foreign agent. The assumption came from the fact that all the Czechoslovak foreign correspondents in the West actually _were_ agents of secret services. My point is, you cannot generalize the systemic features of Western liberal democracies to authoritarian countries. So I would be surprised if this is not true for diplomats as well. Most of them, if not all, are probably operatives of Belarusian secret services, and they probably have mostly conservative-authoritarian values.
    - V-2 5y ago
      Even if they aren't, they've been vetted very carefully by the secret service. Embassies are among the last places where liberal-leaning individuals would be allowed by the regime to get.
  - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
senko 5y ago
What does this have with Hacker News?
- V-2 5y ago
  I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. At the very beginning of HN guidelines we read: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." It sounds pretty much like a story that could make it to TV news, and the phenomenon itself is hardly new (a number of precedents has already been pointed out in other comments).
  - vidarh 5y ago
    > I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. Because people complaining about this is tedious and a regular feature, and it only causes noise. If you don't like an article, move on. If you think it's off topic and shouldn't be there at all, flag. For my part, I find it interesting not because of this specific incident, but because of the comments it has sparked showing how naming places is regularly being used as a low-key passive-aggressive protest by local governments. To me that's an interesting hack around the otherwise limited powers of local government.
    - La1n 5y ago
      > If you don't like an article, move on. You just explained why you think this should be on HN, something that wouldn't have happened without the question.
peteretep 5y ago
> Should the street be renamed, the Belarusian embassy's correspondence and its staff's business cards would [change] Doubt it. I have to imagine "Ambasada Belarusului, București 011411" is going to be pretty deliverable.
piokoch 5y ago
LOL. Lukashenka and Putin will be very upset and will care so much about that. Hijacking Protasevich was a demonstration of power, a showtime for Russian and Bialorusian intelligence competence and ability to operate abroad. This was a Polish plane flying from one EU country to another EU country with EU citizens on-board that was clearly hijacked. Mig-29 was sent to make sure this will happen. What EU did? Blocked Belorussian planes for one day (looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now)? Changing street name? What else, twits, likes and crayons? This is exactly what Putin wants - he wants to show that EU, NATO are not able to protect their interest in Central Europe, more, that they don't even care about this. Russia do this using force - Crimea invasion and catching Protasevich or using economy and influence - German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was bribed by Russians to start building Nord Stream, then Nord Stream 2 followed.
- ddalex 5y ago
  (looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now) Just out of curiosity, I checked now (2021-05-27 10:38 UTC) and not one flight over Belarus is an EU airline: * Aeroflot, MOSCOW to BELGRADE * Unmarked plane T7-HHH under San Marino registration * Belavia, Minsk to Belgrade * Fedex, Hongkong to Liege * Belavia, Istanbul to Minsk * Adzerbaijan Airlines, Baku to Moscow (what is this doing over Belarus, the flight path seems very strange - AHY6735) * Air China, Frankfurt to Beijing What do you expect EU to do about airlines it doesn't control ?
  - V-2 5y ago
    I don't know if the grandparent commenter is correct, but they quite clearly meant Belarussian flights over EU airspace, not the other way round (EU flights over Belarus, which is what you seem to be referring to).
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Belavia themselves[1] say flights to Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Czechia, Latvia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, France and Lithuania are cancelled. That leaves Hungary, Cyprus and Estonia. There are news articles for all three saying bans are supported or in progress — different countries have different legal processes for doing this, and it can take a few more days. [1] https://en.belavia.by/news/ https://en.belavia.by/news/ or https://en.belavia.by/table/ https://en.belavia.by/table/
truth_ 5y ago
I should mention that the American High Comission in Kolkata, India is located at Ho Chi Minh Sarani (street). I find it contunously hilarious. Always gives me a chuckle.
rainworld 5y ago
One man’s journalist is another man’s US Dept. of State sponsored war-fighting neo-nazi https://www.unz.com/akarlin/protasevich-served-in-azov/ https://www.unz.com/akarlin/protasevich-served-in-azov/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- uwagar 5y ago
  interesting!
- versale 5y ago
  What? Wait, but they said he's just a journalist.
- proxysna 5y ago
  The thing is that he never fought. By the time he arrived to the battalion there were no deployments to the frontline anymore. He was in training, took a few photos and left. Biletsky's words differ depending on when you ask him and soldiers that trained with him say that he never was in action. While azov is definitely is not a great bunch, in 2014 it was one of the only groups, alongside with donbas battalion that was accepting volunteers and this was the main attraction. A lot of belarusians and ukranians got there, fought and left and they realized what azov is really about. Tut.by's article: https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27 https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27
  - rainworld 5y ago
    And I’m sure his mom bought him that T-shirt!
    - proxysna 5y ago
      And later in Belarus he worked against authoritarian fascist regime and against exactly what azovs ideology now represents. In a country where you are actively pursued by cops for critiquing people in power and cops have no responsibility and any kind of limitations on use of force, being a journalist that even somewhat challenges the system takes balls and dedication. Most of my family got affected by the regime at some point before leaving the country, witnessed massacre in 2011, gov-t staged terrorist acts. And knowing how Belarus needs people like Protasevich, Putilo, Zavadski, Byabenin, Cherkasova i am willfully dismissing his misdoings in favour of his later achievements. I know that people love to let their entire opinion be based on a single article, but let the bigger picture in.
papito 5y ago
The bigger problem here is that the West is no longer capable of committing to sacrifices in order to squeeze despots like Luka and geopolitical hooligans like Putin, because they are sitting on resources. God forbid local business interests are hurt. Some of it is just straight up bribery. Selfishness is taking over basic patriotism. Not the toxic kind, I mean, basic, like knowing which team you are on, at least. And the more minor part of it is, of course, the terminal condition of not wanting to "disturb the peace". Fine, then, they will do it FOR you, and they will control the situation.
- Dolores12 5y ago
  Let me remind you who is real hooligan here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
  - papito 5y ago
    Even the entry you cite talks about Assange deliberately leaking false info about Snowden onboard. Either way, this is rather poor whataboutism. Landing a diplomatic plane is not threatening to shoot down a loaded civilian jet in order to arrest and most likely now murder a political opponent.
    - Dolores12 5y ago
      Wow, little bit easier. Shoot down the plane? Murder a political opponent? I won't really comment that nonsense. As for Evo Moralez incident, the head of the State and its stuff has diplomatic immunity. Even if the plane is packed with snowdens and assanges you can NOT touch it.
      - papito 5y ago
        So, the two wrongs make it right.
V-2 5y ago
Naming streets after people who are still alive (not to mention under 30) is nonsensical in principle. Make no mistake - I do hope that Protasevich gets released, and I have no sympathy for the regime whatsoever... but there's absolutely no telling what his further life trajectory would be like, and the street name would be there to stay. (It's obviously not guaranteed "forever"; but that's usually the intention, the principle. Street names are not meant for temporary tributes or announcements)
TheGigaChad 5y ago
If they want to send a message - arrest the embassy staff and trade them for Protasevich.
Beltiras 5y ago
That's such a boss move. Hope it goes through.
Dolores12 5y ago
Are we renaming streets after Neo-Nazis now? What else?
lucian1900 5y ago
I’m not surprised, but still ashamed. This isn’t the first time post-89 Romanian authorities rename something to honour a fascist. It even happened to the street I grew up on.
- def_true_false 5y ago
  How much do they pay for shilling in Piter these days? Do you guys get residential proxies, or just hope Russian IPs aren't banned?
  - lucian1900 5y ago
    I’m Romanian and sadly unpaid for my posting.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Please don't post like this, even if you disagree with parent comment. It's a nasty personal attack regardless of who's doing it.
uwagar 5y ago
what happens if the embassy changes the street? like a pointer, they should change every street the embassy moves into.
f6v 5y ago
That is a great idea. Let’s throw even more fuel into the fire of a new Cold War. By naming a street in a EU capital after the guy who’s proud of serving in the white supremacist militia. As if Bucharest has no other problems to solve. I mean, I’ve been there, the place is literally falling apart.
- gtirloni 5y ago
  Do you have a source for him being in a white supremacist militia?
  - padraic7a 5y ago
    https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/26/belarus-roman-protasevich-plane-nazis-ukraine/ https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/26/belarus-roman-protasevich...
    - octodog 5y ago
      That article links to a tweet in Ukrainian that seems to be disputed [0]. Do you have another source? [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1397273535685476359 https://mobile.twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1397273535...
    - tzmudzin 5y ago
      Counter-view: http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissident-not-a-neo-nazi/ http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissi... Where truth dies so easily, make your own judgement.
      - f6v 5y ago
        From the link: > Conspiracy theorist Ivan Katchanovski, known in Ukraine for online ballistic “expertise” of trees on Instytutska square to “prove” Maidan protesters shot each other Which invalidates it right away. I’m yet to hear a convincing story from the Ukrainian government about who shot people on Maidan.
  - 5y ago
squarefoot 5y ago
Brilliant move, but don't think for a second that it would accomplish anything significant other than giving us a misleading sense of justice. Economic sanctions are the only way to change things over there. Of course Belarusian government would arrange things so that only the population will suffer from them, then use propaganda to divert the blame to the external world for economic collapse, loss of jobs etc. but that is normal; the idea behind sanctions isn't just to grab money form the king's wallet but also to light people's discontent so that they're a lot more motivated to revolt.
- phtrivier 5y ago
  I have to ask the candid question : is there any data to back the efficiency of financial sanctions ? Don't get me wrong, I find them preferable to military actions "in general" (although specific cases will differ, and military actions has not been extraordinary effective either...) I'm probably negativly biased by not having seen many dictators fall in the recent years, and a bunch of autocratic government flourish, while the US and EU are enacting sanctions all the time. That being said, maybe the effect can't be spectacular, and it's one of those "sit by the river..." things where you have to surrender to time and biology.
- necovek 5y ago
  Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them (only the "government would arrange things so"): how would you achieve that? Perhaps you only meant that the ruling party will be protected from the financial downturn? I've found sanctions to have only reinforced the us-vs-the-world mentality in Serbia in the early 90s, and I don't think they achieved the goal of the Western countries at the time (which I have no idea what it was, but if it was to get people to dissent enough to overthrow the government, they didn't succeed). It was similar in the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, whereas NATO resorted to bombing civilian targets (like TV station, power plants and bridges in cities) to increase discontent, which did get the government to agree to some sort of surrender (which was only partial compared to the original demands), but this was basically sanctions++ (you not only stop external trade, but destroy things country has already built). Even then, government was overthrown a full year later mostly in parliamentary elections with some election-fraud drama sprinkled in. And people were already much better off than in the low times of early 90s (even outstanding foreign currency debts by banks to people from before the 90s financial collapse were being paid off at the time), so economic downturn was not the driver for the change. I think the core missing part in these "developing democracies" is the skill to compromise (as hundreds of registered political parties in Serbia would attest). As such, I would posit quite the contrary, that helping the population increase wealth would drive them to want to protect that wealth more through democratic and civil means, thus eventually overthrowing the government (I am sure we'll see that in China soon enough, even if it gets masqueraded as not switching away from "communism", though it's so huge that it is a special case). It's not as dramatic as war or sanctions, and might take a decade or two, but I am not sure sanctions have done a better job anywhere either.
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comonoid 5y ago
Let's call it Republic of Protasevia.
patata578 5y ago
nice
ceilingcorner 5y ago
Instead of solving actual problems, politicians have the maturity level of small children. Good to know.
art3m 5y ago
Interesting, guy participated in ultra-nationalist Ukrainian battalion Azov after all
gokhan 5y ago
A plane flying between two EU cities hijacked and this, along with a couple similar useless actions, is the only response from EU. As someone living in a country on it's way of total authoritarianism, I hate it when the West do almost nothing [1] for the sake of economic relations with the aggressor or with it's bigger brother. [1] https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned
abbassi 5y ago
Anybody talking about Julian Assange?
leto_ii 5y ago
As a born and raised Bucharester I find this idea completely juvenile and ridiculous. I have absolutely no love for Lukashenko (or for his master Putin for that matter) and I fully agree that what was done is outrageous and should be condemned and sanctioned (as long as the EU finds a way to sanction the elite without harming the Belarusian people themselves). However, I think this kind of gestures are hasty, puerile and unnecessarily provocative. Naming a street just to spite another country's leader is on par with the kind of idiotic gestures somebody like Rogozin is famous for [1]. What's next, naming a street after Navalny to spite Putin? And after that? Khashoggi boulevard to piss off MBS? This would never end. By this measure the entire city should be renamed to spite all the despots of the world. The idea of a negative reason to name a street is also extremely dubious. Normally streets, squares, parks etc. are named after people or events we want to praise or commemorate. I understand that Protasevich is a dissident and people like him should be protected and encouraged, but why name a street after him? And in Bucharest of all places? Does he have any connection to the city or the country? Is he a hero of the Romanian people? Does Romania, Bucharest or the 1st district have anything to do with the fight for democracy in Belarus? The whole thing is ill conceived. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin#Controversy

While these word/name changes make people on social media feel good, they achieve less than nothing in real-world benefits. They are actually counter-productive, in my opinion by distracting attention away from meaningful action.

eu 5y ago
What could a district mayor do?
- V-2 5y ago
  Hopefully something meaningful and productive for the inhabitants of the city
  - yreg 5y ago
    Renaming a street to make a political statement obviously doesn't prevent the municipality from doing something meaningful and productive for the inhabitants of the city. We don't live in a turn based strategy and the mayor did not spend her action. She doesn't have to wait for the next turn to do something else.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    This is a fallacy. People can make more than one decision in a year. Particularly large cities' councils, which are tasked with running amazingly complex administrative and economic systems. So unless there are indications that other decisions were delayed or scrapped because they want to change the street name, this is irrelevant.
    - koheripbal 5y ago
      Resources are finite. One of the main resource limitations for leaders is time. This is a waste of the mayor's time.
      - yreg 5y ago
        You are assuming that had the mayor skipped this proposal (which sounds like very little work to me), she would have done something else for thew city instead. Real world doesn't work like that. If you are familiar with Bucharest municipal politics, by all means criticise that they are not doing a good enough job, or that they handled some things wrong. But without context it's nonsensical to attack someone the way you do. Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that.
        maest 5y ago
        > Perhaps the mayor is doing 10x better job than her predecessor and she proposed this name change in addition to that. Technically, the argument is that they are doing less work than their hypothetical counterpart who is identical in all respects, but did not spend time on making the name change proposal. Clearly this is almost nonfalsifiable, so a difficult argument to take seriously.
    - V-2 5y ago
      It's not a fallacy, unless you take it out of context. The context was as follows: the grand-grandparent comment pointed out that this change achieves nothing. The grandparent comment didn't challenge it, but asked rhetorically what [else] a mayor could do. This response implies that something had to be done (by the mayor) by definition, whether useful or not. And that's what's fallacious to me. Municipal entities aren't really actors in international politics, and when they try playing such a role, the results tend to be dubious. That's my opinion at least. As for your comment - that "people can make more than one decision in a year" - it, in turn, feels like a strawman argument to me, because noone said that they can't. There is still some limit, though (obviously larger than 1, but nevertheless finite), and renaming a street always comes at a substantial cost - both for the city and private entities. Cost associated with the need for changing street name signs, changing documents etc. Maybe that cost is worth paying, but an ad absurdum line of argument isn't something that could convince me of it.

boomskats 5y ago

Misleading title. First sentence of the linked article: > The street in the Romanian capital Bucharest where the Belarusian embassy is located could be renamed in honour of dissident journalist Roman Protasevich as a gesture of solidarity after his dramatic arrest, a district mayor has said.

rocgf 5y ago
Indeed, the title is absolutely wrong. This is not a done deal, it is just a proposal.
okamiueru 5y ago
For future reference, it's probably a good idea to also include what the title you are referring to. HN is notorious for changing the title so many times and frequently that its hard to know whether the title changed since the post was made.
- johnnycerberus 5y ago
  I'm the OP. The title was that "Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street". Mayor of the 1st district is sending the proposal this morning to the General Mayor at the city hall, the talks are official and they are undergoing. The street name hasn't been changed yet.
- bachmeier 5y ago
  > HN is notorious for changing the title so many times and frequently That's mostly because people regularly submit with misleading/false titles.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Mods are pretty happy to change titles if they feel it makes it clearer too, and have less than a 100% success rate at that. e.g. this topic they changed "Deno 1.10" to "Deno 1.1" in the title: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27127316 Which are not the same things. Also I've seen attempts to clarify actors involved, but occasionally making it muddier. e.g. this one removes the fact that the response was from a Wireguard developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25759477 Or once or twice, just wrong. I'm not saying this is malicious, but the criteria for getting titles changed is definitely more loose than "title is false/misleading".

nob0dyasked 5y ago

Why is this irrelevant story on HN? Some irrelevant person posts something inconsequential on FB, yet we push it to a technology news board?

Jughashvili 5y ago

Увы, такое бывает, когда работаешь на подрыв своего государства с иностранными спецслужбами. Заслуженное наказание нашло предателя. Батька молодец.

msoloi 5y ago

hey! that's my hometown, nice to see that the mayor I voted for is considering to do something to address this crisis

Macha 5y ago

Similar past event: The British embassy in Iran once moved its entrance as the street it was originally on was renamed after Bobby Sands, IRA hunger striker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,_Tehran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,...

throwaway4good 5y ago

I live in a city where city council politicians regularly proposes to change the name of “Israel square” to “Palestine square”. Fairly idiotic in my opinion.

tokai 5y ago
Why is it idiotic?
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  Because that particular conflict dates back over a thousand years, both sides have legitimate grievances, and the politics and consequential conflict are incredibly complex despite what propagandists on either side would have you believe. Such a reductionist statement by some local council would be counterproductive.
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  Let's discuss naming the street with the Chinese embassy "Falun Gong street" and the one with the American embassy "Julian Assange street" instead focusing on keeping our streets clean of rubbish and our schools well run. It is idiotic because local politicians should not do foreign policy, and if they try they likely will show themselves as incompetent fools.
  - smcl 5y ago
    I think you are overestimating the time and effort ... 1. involved in proposing changing a street name 2. spent by the mayor directly on the activities you mention
    - throwaway4good 5y ago
      It is not so much what they spend their time on, it is more how they misdirect and manipulate public opinion. Like: sure I am an incompetent and corrupt mayor but let’s talk about the Israel / Palestine - isn’t it just horrible how the Israelis are bombing children?

proxysna 5y ago

Czech's done the same thing to Russian embassy. Renamed the square that embassy is on to Boris Nemtsov square. Petty? yeah. Good? yeah.

vincnetas 5y ago
Lithuania has done the same in Vilnius. Square in front of RU embassy got renamed to Boris Nemtsov square after his murder in Moscow. Not sure if it had any direct effect, though happy that a memory of such aggressions gets persisted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov
- V-2 5y ago
  Warsaw named one of its roundabouts after the Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev - similarly in Lviv (Ukraine).
  - f6v 5y ago
    Nothing says “Let’s try to resolve the issues between our states” like naming a street after someone who’s considered a terrorist by your neighbor. Has no practical value, no historical significance for your city. Just to piss someone off. This is a kindergarten-level politics.
    - vincnetas 5y ago
      All Lithuanian liberty activists killed by soviets during occupation were labeled as "terrorists" by USSR. Should LT treat them as terrorists because USSR labeled them so? By the way there is at least one statue of Lithuanian liberty fighting "terrorist" in Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas
    - martin_a 5y ago
      How are you going to deal with authoritarian states which give a fuck about nothing?

sebow 5y ago

While that's a sensible gesture, Clotilde Armand should focus on the garbage and rats on the streets of her sector (yes, really), rather than these moves that are usually made at "higher courts"(US,UK,France usually). I hate to switch the subject but yes, it's a distraction from the fact that the mayor elections have very big holes and there's almost proof of corruption and fraud during the counting of votes (after which she became mayor). To stay on topic: I doubt Minsk really cares about this.Lukashenko is neither pro-west nor pro-russia really, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in power by all means necessary.

aorth 5y ago

Editorialized title on HN submission. Actual title on Reuters: Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of Belarusian embassy

lamp987 5y ago

A bit childish IMO

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
…And Lukashenko's actions aren't?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  They are actually murderous.

littlestymaar 5y ago

There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach. (given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish)

alapshin 5y ago
> There's nothing done yet, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. It's pointless when it is not backed by real sanctions. It does nothing to punish brazen actions of autocrats while giving them fuel for propaganda. > Punishing autocrats on their ego instead of their people sounds like a much better approach. How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. If you want to help ordinary people - simplify immigration. > Given that economic sanctions usually fail to overthrow the regimes they are intended to punish Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > How about real sanctions on autocrats, their cronies, families and businesses? Sanction oligarchs, sanction businesses that are main source of income for autocrats etc. Sure, but these have a limited reach and they are usually being done very early in the sanction process. But once the targets have no more estate in the Western world, there is not much you can do. > Maybe not, but they cripple country development and leave autocrats with less resources for a future actions. But that's a really limited success at the cost of hundreds of lives, which makes it morally very difficult to justify.
f6v 5y ago
As pointless and stupid as taking down the flag of a sovereign state and replacing it with something else. What you get is more enemies and hate.
- vincnetas 5y ago

pydry 5y ago

RT's current approach seems to be to focus on Protasevich's alleged role as a propagandist for the neo nazi azov brigades in donbass and, of course, the whole Snowden/Morales affair. Western news media outlets, by contrast, seem to be lionizing the journalist's role in the Belarus protests, but at some point I imagine they will have address the above two points. Silence is too awkward. It is interesting to diff the propaganda from both sides here, especially since domestic propaganda value appears to have been a key component of why Lukashenko chose to do this.

axiosgunnar 5y ago
Both sides do propaganda, but where would you prefer to live if you were a dissident?
- lazyjones 5y ago
  Do you get assigned the role of dissident at birth? Or do we rather choose it based on living in places with particular regimes? A more valid question would be: where would you rather live if you were glorifying Azov brigades? The answer would apparently be: the West. And you know where Snowden chose to live and why. So it appears that people more aligned with my (and generally accepted) values tend to prefer Russia and its allies, with a good reason.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Do you think that Snowden prefers to live in Russia because of his values or because of his safety?
    - lazyjones 5y ago
      Because his values made him a dissident in the West, where he is in danger.
      - vbezhenar 5y ago

axiosgunnar 5y ago

> Bucharest mayor changes Belarus embassy's street name to Protasevich Street This is not just another case of an editorialized title on HN. It‘s much worse. The EU has been accused precisely that it won't actually do anything against the arrest of Protasevich, besides posting angry tweets for a few days. The title of the article suggest it has actually done „something“. But in reality it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook, giving the impression that something was done!

4ad 5y ago
> it‘s exactly what we all fear, just „some guy“ trolling around on Facebook Well that "guy" is the mayor of one of the capital's districts, and she used to be a member of the european parliament. No idea if anything will come from this proposal, but it's not some guy trolling on Facebook.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  It literally is some gal trolling on Facebook. Even if it were Merkel and Sarkozy tweeting, it is literally just tweeting. They could be actually implementing the actions they want, but instead they chose to just pretend to be doing something.
fogihujy 5y ago
This proposal (which I find hilarious) is from local politicians in Bucharest and not from the EU. There are already _a lot_ of economic sanctions aimed at Belarus and each time new ones are imposed, it'll be successively harder to do more the next time. There's only so much that can be done -- The EU has already pretty much delivered Belarus into the hands of Russia and the EU isn't going to try direct intervention. Nobody wants a confrontation with Russia or a repeat of the Ukraine situation.
pydry 5y ago
The EU is kind of stuck. Most of the options at its disposal would likely be made to drive resentment by Belarussians towards the EU and push them into Putin's arms. This is in direct opposition to the EU's strategic goals - it wants Belarussians have a favorable view of the EU and an unfavorable view of Russia. They've actually been doing fairly well at that so far. On the other hand, if they do nothing they look weak. RT and domestic Belarussian propaganda outlets are all geared up to tell Belarussians that they won't be able to get their medicine because the EU doesn't like that we used the same unconventional methods they used to get Snowden to arrest a domestic neo nazi insurgent (that being the line they're going with now) oh and by the way "they named a street after their hero". I don't think there are many good options here. Indeed, doing nothing, galling as it might be, might be the lesser evil.

fiftyacorn 5y ago

Glasgow named the street where the south African embassy was as Nelson Mandela square during apartheid. It was a dig at both south Africa and thatcher

michaelt 5y ago

This is something of a tradition [1] - for example, the British Embassy in Tehran has its street name changed to Bobby Sands Avenue in the 1980s; Glasgow renamed a street adjoining the South African consulate to Nelson Mandela Place during apartheid; in 2018 Washington DC renamed the street housing the Russian Embassy as Boris Nemtsov Street; and so on. While this might not accomplish much in real terms, I do find it hilarious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_names_changed_around_diplomatic_mission_buildings_for_political_reasons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_street_names_changed_a...

peteretep 5y ago
I suspect most embassy staff are -- like the ones from Western nations -- generally pretty liberal, and probably secretly fairly supportive of this.
- js8 5y ago
  Um, probably not. I just heard an interview with a journalist, Jolyon Naegele, a Western correspondent in Czechoslovakia in the 80s (who worked for Radio Free Europe). He talked about how Czechoslovak secret services bothered him (often in a very crude, stupid ways) and also how they, in some sense, were afraid of him, since they assumed that he is a foreign agent. The assumption came from the fact that all the Czechoslovak foreign correspondents in the West actually _were_ agents of secret services. My point is, you cannot generalize the systemic features of Western liberal democracies to authoritarian countries. So I would be surprised if this is not true for diplomats as well. Most of them, if not all, are probably operatives of Belarusian secret services, and they probably have mostly conservative-authoritarian values.
  - V-2 5y ago
    Even if they aren't, they've been vetted very carefully by the secret service. Embassies are among the last places where liberal-leaning individuals would be allowed by the regime to get.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago

senko 5y ago

What does this have with Hacker News?

V-2 5y ago
I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. At the very beginning of HN guidelines we read: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. [...] If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." It sounds pretty much like a story that could make it to TV news, and the phenomenon itself is hardly new (a number of precedents has already been pointed out in other comments).
- vidarh 5y ago
  > I'm wondering about the same, and I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. Because people complaining about this is tedious and a regular feature, and it only causes noise. If you don't like an article, move on. If you think it's off topic and shouldn't be there at all, flag. For my part, I find it interesting not because of this specific incident, but because of the comments it has sparked showing how naming places is regularly being used as a low-key passive-aggressive protest by local governments. To me that's an interesting hack around the otherwise limited powers of local government.
  - La1n 5y ago
    > If you don't like an article, move on. You just explained why you think this should be on HN, something that wouldn't have happened without the question.

peteretep 5y ago

> Should the street be renamed, the Belarusian embassy's correspondence and its staff's business cards would [change] Doubt it. I have to imagine "Ambasada Belarusului, București 011411" is going to be pretty deliverable.

piokoch 5y ago

LOL. Lukashenka and Putin will be very upset and will care so much about that. Hijacking Protasevich was a demonstration of power, a showtime for Russian and Bialorusian intelligence competence and ability to operate abroad. This was a Polish plane flying from one EU country to another EU country with EU citizens on-board that was clearly hijacked. Mig-29 was sent to make sure this will happen. What EU did? Blocked Belorussian planes for one day (looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now)? Changing street name? What else, twits, likes and crayons? This is exactly what Putin wants - he wants to show that EU, NATO are not able to protect their interest in Central Europe, more, that they don't even care about this. Russia do this using force - Crimea invasion and catching Protasevich or using economy and influence - German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was bribed by Russians to start building Nord Stream, then Nord Stream 2 followed.

ddalex 5y ago
(looking on Flight Radar, blockade is gone now) Just out of curiosity, I checked now (2021-05-27 10:38 UTC) and not one flight over Belarus is an EU airline: * Aeroflot, MOSCOW to BELGRADE * Unmarked plane T7-HHH under San Marino registration * Belavia, Minsk to Belgrade * Fedex, Hongkong to Liege * Belavia, Istanbul to Minsk * Adzerbaijan Airlines, Baku to Moscow (what is this doing over Belarus, the flight path seems very strange - AHY6735) * Air China, Frankfurt to Beijing What do you expect EU to do about airlines it doesn't control ?
- V-2 5y ago
  I don't know if the grandparent commenter is correct, but they quite clearly meant Belarussian flights over EU airspace, not the other way round (EU flights over Belarus, which is what you seem to be referring to).
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Belavia themselves[1] say flights to Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Czechia, Latvia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, France and Lithuania are cancelled. That leaves Hungary, Cyprus and Estonia. There are news articles for all three saying bans are supported or in progress — different countries have different legal processes for doing this, and it can take a few more days. [1] https://en.belavia.by/news/ https://en.belavia.by/news/ or https://en.belavia.by/table/ https://en.belavia.by/table/

truth_ 5y ago

I should mention that the American High Comission in Kolkata, India is located at Ho Chi Minh Sarani (street). I find it contunously hilarious. Always gives me a chuckle.

rainworld 5y ago

One man’s journalist is another man’s US Dept. of State sponsored war-fighting neo-nazi https://www.unz.com/akarlin/protasevich-served-in-azov/ https://www.unz.com/akarlin/protasevich-served-in-azov/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
uwagar 5y ago
interesting!
versale 5y ago
What? Wait, but they said he's just a journalist.
proxysna 5y ago
The thing is that he never fought. By the time he arrived to the battalion there were no deployments to the frontline anymore. He was in training, took a few photos and left. Biletsky's words differ depending on when you ask him and soldiers that trained with him say that he never was in action. While azov is definitely is not a great bunch, in 2014 it was one of the only groups, alongside with donbas battalion that was accepting volunteers and this was the main attraction. A lot of belarusians and ukranians got there, fought and left and they realized what azov is really about. Tut.by's article: https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27 https://telegra.ph/Voeval-li-Protasevich-v-Ukraine-05-27
- rainworld 5y ago
  And I’m sure his mom bought him that T-shirt!
  - proxysna 5y ago
    And later in Belarus he worked against authoritarian fascist regime and against exactly what azovs ideology now represents. In a country where you are actively pursued by cops for critiquing people in power and cops have no responsibility and any kind of limitations on use of force, being a journalist that even somewhat challenges the system takes balls and dedication. Most of my family got affected by the regime at some point before leaving the country, witnessed massacre in 2011, gov-t staged terrorist acts. And knowing how Belarus needs people like Protasevich, Putilo, Zavadski, Byabenin, Cherkasova i am willfully dismissing his misdoings in favour of his later achievements. I know that people love to let their entire opinion be based on a single article, but let the bigger picture in.

papito 5y ago

The bigger problem here is that the West is no longer capable of committing to sacrifices in order to squeeze despots like Luka and geopolitical hooligans like Putin, because they are sitting on resources. God forbid local business interests are hurt. Some of it is just straight up bribery. Selfishness is taking over basic patriotism. Not the toxic kind, I mean, basic, like knowing which team you are on, at least. And the more minor part of it is, of course, the terminal condition of not wanting to "disturb the peace". Fine, then, they will do it FOR you, and they will control the situation.

Dolores12 5y ago
Let me remind you who is real hooligan here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
- papito 5y ago
  Even the entry you cite talks about Assange deliberately leaking false info about Snowden onboard. Either way, this is rather poor whataboutism. Landing a diplomatic plane is not threatening to shoot down a loaded civilian jet in order to arrest and most likely now murder a political opponent.
  - Dolores12 5y ago
    Wow, little bit easier. Shoot down the plane? Murder a political opponent? I won't really comment that nonsense. As for Evo Moralez incident, the head of the State and its stuff has diplomatic immunity. Even if the plane is packed with snowdens and assanges you can NOT touch it.
    - papito 5y ago
      So, the two wrongs make it right.

V-2 5y ago

Naming streets after people who are still alive (not to mention under 30) is nonsensical in principle. Make no mistake - I do hope that Protasevich gets released, and I have no sympathy for the regime whatsoever... but there's absolutely no telling what his further life trajectory would be like, and the street name would be there to stay. (It's obviously not guaranteed "forever"; but that's usually the intention, the principle. Street names are not meant for temporary tributes or announcements)

TheGigaChad 5y ago

If they want to send a message - arrest the embassy staff and trade them for Protasevich.

Beltiras 5y ago

That's such a boss move. Hope it goes through.

Dolores12 5y ago

Are we renaming streets after Neo-Nazis now? What else?

lucian1900 5y ago

I’m not surprised, but still ashamed. This isn’t the first time post-89 Romanian authorities rename something to honour a fascist. It even happened to the street I grew up on.

def_true_false 5y ago
How much do they pay for shilling in Piter these days? Do you guys get residential proxies, or just hope Russian IPs aren't banned?
- lucian1900 5y ago
  I’m Romanian and sadly unpaid for my posting.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Please don't post like this, even if you disagree with parent comment. It's a nasty personal attack regardless of who's doing it.

uwagar 5y ago

what happens if the embassy changes the street? like a pointer, they should change every street the embassy moves into.

f6v 5y ago

That is a great idea. Let’s throw even more fuel into the fire of a new Cold War. By naming a street in a EU capital after the guy who’s proud of serving in the white supremacist militia. As if Bucharest has no other problems to solve. I mean, I’ve been there, the place is literally falling apart.

gtirloni 5y ago
Do you have a source for him being in a white supremacist militia?
- padraic7a 5y ago
  https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/26/belarus-roman-protasevich-plane-nazis-ukraine/ https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/26/belarus-roman-protasevich...
  - octodog 5y ago
    That article links to a tweet in Ukrainian that seems to be disputed [0]. Do you have another source? [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1397273535685476359 https://mobile.twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1397273535...
  - tzmudzin 5y ago
    Counter-view: http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissident-not-a-neo-nazi/ http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/05/26/protasevich-is-a-dissi... Where truth dies so easily, make your own judgement.
    - f6v 5y ago
      From the link: > Conspiracy theorist Ivan Katchanovski, known in Ukraine for online ballistic “expertise” of trees on Instytutska square to “prove” Maidan protesters shot each other Which invalidates it right away. I’m yet to hear a convincing story from the Ukrainian government about who shot people on Maidan.
- 5y ago

squarefoot 5y ago

Brilliant move, but don't think for a second that it would accomplish anything significant other than giving us a misleading sense of justice. Economic sanctions are the only way to change things over there. Of course Belarusian government would arrange things so that only the population will suffer from them, then use propaganda to divert the blame to the external world for economic collapse, loss of jobs etc. but that is normal; the idea behind sanctions isn't just to grab money form the king's wallet but also to light people's discontent so that they're a lot more motivated to revolt.

phtrivier 5y ago
I have to ask the candid question : is there any data to back the efficiency of financial sanctions ? Don't get me wrong, I find them preferable to military actions "in general" (although specific cases will differ, and military actions has not been extraordinary effective either...) I'm probably negativly biased by not having seen many dictators fall in the recent years, and a bunch of autocratic government flourish, while the US and EU are enacting sanctions all the time. That being said, maybe the effect can't be spectacular, and it's one of those "sit by the river..." things where you have to surrender to time and biology.
necovek 5y ago
Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them (only the "government would arrange things so"): how would you achieve that? Perhaps you only meant that the ruling party will be protected from the financial downturn? I've found sanctions to have only reinforced the us-vs-the-world mentality in Serbia in the early 90s, and I don't think they achieved the goal of the Western countries at the time (which I have no idea what it was, but if it was to get people to dissent enough to overthrow the government, they didn't succeed). It was similar in the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, whereas NATO resorted to bombing civilian targets (like TV station, power plants and bridges in cities) to increase discontent, which did get the government to agree to some sort of surrender (which was only partial compared to the original demands), but this was basically sanctions++ (you not only stop external trade, but destroy things country has already built). Even then, government was overthrown a full year later mostly in parliamentary elections with some election-fraud drama sprinkled in. And people were already much better off than in the low times of early 90s (even outstanding foreign currency debts by banks to people from before the 90s financial collapse were being paid off at the time), so economic downturn was not the driver for the change. I think the core missing part in these "developing democracies" is the skill to compromise (as hundreds of registered political parties in Serbia would attest). As such, I would posit quite the contrary, that helping the population increase wealth would drive them to want to protect that wealth more through democratic and civil means, thus eventually overthrowing the government (I am sure we'll see that in China soon enough, even if it gets masqueraded as not switching away from "communism", though it's so huge that it is a special case). It's not as dramatic as war or sanctions, and might take a decade or two, but I am not sure sanctions have done a better job anywhere either.

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comonoid 5y ago

Let's call it Republic of Protasevia.

patata578 5y ago

nice

ceilingcorner 5y ago

Instead of solving actual problems, politicians have the maturity level of small children. Good to know.

art3m 5y ago

Interesting, guy participated in ultra-nationalist Ukrainian battalion Azov after all

gokhan 5y ago

A plane flying between two EU cities hijacked and this, along with a couple similar useless actions, is the only response from EU. As someone living in a country on it's way of total authoritarianism, I hate it when the West do almost nothing [1] for the sake of economic relations with the aggressor or with it's bigger brother. [1] https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned

abbassi 5y ago

Anybody talking about Julian Assange?

leto_ii 5y ago

As a born and raised Bucharester I find this idea completely juvenile and ridiculous. I have absolutely no love for Lukashenko (or for his master Putin for that matter) and I fully agree that what was done is outrageous and should be condemned and sanctioned (as long as the EU finds a way to sanction the elite without harming the Belarusian people themselves). However, I think this kind of gestures are hasty, puerile and unnecessarily provocative. Naming a street just to spite another country's leader is on par with the kind of idiotic gestures somebody like Rogozin is famous for [1]. What's next, naming a street after Navalny to spite Putin? And after that? Khashoggi boulevard to piss off MBS? This would never end. By this measure the entire city should be renamed to spite all the despots of the world. The idea of a negative reason to name a street is also extremely dubious. Normally streets, squares, parks etc. are named after people or events we want to praise or commemorate. I understand that Protasevich is a dissident and people like him should be protected and encouraged, but why name a street after him? And in Bucharest of all places? Does he have any connection to the city or the country? Is he a hero of the Romanian people? Does Romania, Bucharest or the 1st district have anything to do with the fight for democracy in Belarus? The whole thing is ill conceived. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Rogozin#Controversy