Doctors and medical staff, notoriously underpaid and neglected in post-Soviet states, are on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 - and increasingly at the fore of civic activism against state repression. They’ve staged pickets, joined street protests, and launched campaigns, themselves coming under immense pressure from authorities.
In Belarus, in particular, medical activism has become a hallmark of the ongoing anti-government demonstrations. Medical personnel were among the first to join the mass demonstrations after Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory in a rigged election on 9 August, and they’ve been a fixture of the protest movement since. Already taxed by the government’s callous disregard for the severity of the pandemic, many medical workers began to mobilise after treating victims of brutal police crackdowns on peaceful protesters. Doctors, nurses and medical students have been manhandled, arrested and assigned administrative penalties for protesting. Around 25 doctors have been jailed with administrative arrests, two are facing criminal charges. Some 20 medics have been fired for political reasons, and nearly 180 fined, according to activists.
Most recently, Belarusian doctors rallied in support of aesthesiologist Artsiom Sarokin. He was arrested after refuting government claims that 31-year-old opposition protester Raman Bandarenka, who died after being detained by police, had suffered from alcohol poisoning. Medical personnel at the Minsk Emergency Hospital, where Bandarenka had been treated, lined up as if they were protesters being arrested, holding signs that read “zero ppm”. The video went viral, and “zero ppm” has become a slogan, with journalists, students and activists replicating the protest.
