Doctor Honoris Causa & Honorary Title Difference Day 2021
SVETLANA ALEKSANDROVNA ALEXIEVICH, DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA OF ULB & VUB
By awarding an honorary doctorate to Svetlana Aleksijevich, the VUB and ULB want to pay tribute to an author who thinks for himself, speaks freely and acts freely. An author who also gives a voice to those whose voice is not often heard. In her search for truth, she does not shrink from seeking, at the risk of her own life, the uncomfortable facts and events that are being removed from official historiography.
Svetlana Aleksandrovna Aleksyevich is a Belarusian investigative journalist, historian and writer, whose work was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015.
Aleksyevich’s oeuvre can be read as a form of contemporary oral historiography of the Soviet Union and its succession states. Because her work shatters myths and illusions and is not guided by the official version of the facts, she often came under attack from the authorities, both during the Soviet Union, when she lost her job as a journalist. as afterwards as a writer in Belarus, where her work could not be published. That meant that she had to leave her country in 2000 and stayed in Paris and Berlin for a long time. In 2011 she consciously chose to return to Belarus and became one of the faces of the democratic opposition in the country.
In August 2020, Svetlana Aleksyevich joined in the protests against the elections manipulated by incumbent President Lukashenko. On a free radio station, she urged the president to resign: “Leave before it is too late, before you plunge people into a terrible abyss, the abyss of the civil war. Nobody wants to see blood. You just want power. And it is your thirst for power that requires bloodshed. ” Svetlana Aleksyevich took a leading role in the so-called “Coordination Council”, which united the opposition to Lukashenko.
In September 2020, all members of the coordination council were arrested, expelled from the country or found to have disappeared without a trace after being kidnapped. Aleksyevich alone was still at liberty, presumably because the regime did not dare to deal with her because of its international prestige. Nevertheless, she fell victim to threats, as a result of which Western diplomats offered to “guard” her to ensure her safety. Although she initially planned to stay in Belarus at all costs, she decided to move to Germany in September 2020, albeit with the intention of returning as soon as possible.
Zhang Zhan, DIFFERENCE DAY HONORARY TITLE 2021
Zhang Zhan is a Chinese civilian journalist and former lawyer who was tortured by the Chinese secret police and sentenced to four years in prison. This was done in a hasty process in which no independent observers were allowed to be present. She was convicted of “provoking quarrels and trouble” for her reporting on the poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Chinese government. She is the first citizen reporter to be convicted of covering the pandemic in China. She was the first to report on the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. At least 47 other journalists are currently being held in China for reporting on the coronavirus.
The Chinese journalist went to Wuhan during the first months after the coronavirus outbreak to report and collect testimonials about the situation. These were then distributed on social media such as WeChat, Twitter and Youtube. In addition, Zhang Zhan reported on the imprisonment of independent journalists and the harassment of the families of corona victims.
In May 2020, Zhang Zhan was arrested and detained on charges of “seeking to fight and causing trouble”. In prison, Zhang Zhan lives in appalling conditions. She has to wear ankle cuffs and her hands were also handcuffed for a period of three months. In prison, Zhang Zhan went on a hunger strike but was force-fed.