Brickbat: Stop the Music

A Belarusian court has sentenced the members of dissident rock band Nizkiz to two years of prison labor after finding them guilty of "organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order." After President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in the country's disputed 2020 election, mass protests broke out. Nizkiz released the song "Rules," which became a protest anthem, and filmed the song's music video at the site of one of those demonstrations. The government also placed the band on its official registry of extremists, effectively banning its music and making its fans targets for prosecution.

Comments

[Stuck in California]

I bet the song wasn't even between 80 and 120 beats per minute.

[Vernon Depner]

In our country, that kind of treatment is only for opposition politicians.

[Moonrocks]

Thank god we live in a free country where citizens aren't put in prison for years and labeled extremists because they were filmed at a protest.

[Will Nonya]

That comment might be ironic we're it not so deeply steeped in ignorance and denial.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Or perhaps sarcasm.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Instead of breaking rock songs they're now just breaking rocks.

[mad.casual]

JFC. Now I understand why you have a rule against puns. Maybe the Belarusian court wasn't misfiring, just missing the appropriate target.

[Don't look at me!]

Instead of breaking rock songs they’re now just breaking rocks.

And they won’t be able to get stoned.

[Quicktown Brix]

Yeah, but I bet the subways are nice.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Nizkiz On The Bliz?

Limp Nizkiz?

[mad.casual]

Belarusian Pussy Riot

[Longtobefree]

"organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order."

Political party conventions?

[Mickey Rat]

So are they left wing dissidents or right wing dissidents? How can we judge if the government's actions were evil or good without that information?

[mad.casual]

I'm sure there's nothing buried or lost in translation between "At the site of one of those demonstrations" and "At the capital". A free and independent Western media, especially the fair minds and fair markets portion, would never make such a disingenuous conflation in order to advance some sort of sensationalist political agenda.

[Will Nonya]

Coming soon to a republic near you!

[mad.casual]

Everybody knows the only legitimate way to break up a concert is to kill, rape, and capture thousands of attendees, call them colonizers and insist you were there first, and then cry "Genocide! No fair!" when they call you out on every inch of your recently-invented but dearly-held nationalist chants that just so happen to call for their unequivocal genocide within the borders you espouse.

[Rubbish!]

Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the czar and the czar won

[Dillinger]

I promise to loudly support Nizkiz as much as I do Pussy Riot but it's not as much fun.