Page 50 - bne magazine September 2021_20210901

50 I Eastern Europe bne September 2021
were made by Western companies. The leaders are US companies with a total share of 32%. Companies from Belarus itself accout for a total of 25% of the spots. Companies from India, Russia and Turkey comprised the remaining 12% of the advertising spots.
By far the most commercials were aired by Procter & Gamble (100, USA) and Nestlé (79, Switzerland), followed by Mars (44, USA), Henkel (43, Germany), Colgate-Palmolive (37, USA) Sandoz (35, Switzerland), Coca-Cola (35, USA), PepsiCo (33, USA), Dr. Theiss Naturwaren (32, Germany) and Mondelez International (29, USA).
A further 82 commercials were broadcast by the following Western companies: Carlsberg (Denmark), L’Oréal and Sanofi (both France), Dolorgiet (Germany), GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Sniezka (Poland) and Gedeon Richter (Hungary).
These advertisements appear despite more than 40,000 arrests in the past 12 months, at least 1,800 documented
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reports of torture and more than 600 political prisoners that are in detention, according to human rights organisations estimates.
“For a year now, the Lukashenko regime has been terrorising its own population; even the worst PR manager should
have noticed that. The fact that global brands like Procter & Gamble, Mars, Henkel, Coca-Cola or PepsiCo continue
to advertise on the dictator’s propaganda channels is a scandal. The companies obviously only care about their profits, they do not care about the catastrophic human rights situation in Belarus. The Western corporations have lost all sense of injustice, this is a moral declaration
of bankruptcy,” Libereco’s chairman in Germany, Marco Fieber, said in the report.
The President of Libereco Switzerland, Lars Bünger, emphasises with regard to the food giant Nestlé, which despite criticism continues to advertise
its products widely on Belarusian state television: “The company was comprehensively informed by us in a personal conversation at the
beginning of July about the human rights situation in Belarus. After the recent shocking events, we now expect a public statement from Nestlé very soon on how they will end their advertising on Belarusian state media.”
Fieber and Bünger are appealing
to politicians to ban advertising by international companies in Belarusian state media as a targeted sanction against the criminal Lukashenko regime, the report says.
“In addition to the sanctions already imposed by numerous countries, Libereco also calls on all democratic governments to take further punitive measures against the ruling regime
in Belarus. Among other things, the organisation is pushing for Belarusian banks to be excluded from the international payments system SWIFT and for a ban on trading in Belarusian government bonds. Instead of the red-green Belarusian flag, which represents the Lukashenko regime, the white-red-white flag should be used internationally,” Libereco says.