Motherland

When Svetlana sent her only son Sasha off to the army during peacetime, she never imagined his body would come back in a coffin. Now she is one of the mothers seeking a fair investigation into crimes in the Belorussian army. She comes up against a system that has consistently trampled on free will and human dignity for decades, turning individuals joining the army into obedient cogs in a violent machine for the purpose of protecting Lukashenko’s regime. Propaganda in the military supports violent crackdowns on peaceful anti-government protests; dissent is not tolerated. In contemporary Belarus, the rights of critics of the regime are being suppressed - as are the rights of those trained by brutal means to protect it. (One World)