At the moment, there are mass protests going on in Belarus because of a publicly rigged election. To preface, Belarus is my home country and I have a lot of family living there and currently going through the struggles of everyday life. The current dictator President has been in office for 26 years despite a re-election every five years. On exit polls, that same President got around a 13% popular vote, and the real winning candidate got an overwhelming 80%. What happened next is typical in corrupt government systems: the incumbent President said that he won the election with 80% in his favor and our peaceful country of Belarus was furious. People erupted into protests and they didn’t just get off lightly with tear gas. Student protestors were kicked out of college, workers were fired for protesting, people would get kidnapped in the middle of the day and their bodies would be found in ditches, rivers, and dump sites. The number of dead, dying, or beaten past repair people isn’t slowing down, and the news outlets don’t report on the mass deaths and abuse. Protestors are getting arrested, and then dealt with quietly in jail cells. The peace signs that my fellow Belarusians held proudly made my heart hurt, knowing that a lot of them would be killed for it. A lot of people are now renouncing the current (and might I add ugly) flag

and replacing it with our original, lovely red and white flag of freedom.