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Public Council on Morals demanding preview of Rammstein’s Minsk show

The Belarusian Public Council on Morals has demanded the preview of a show that German rockers Rammstein are scheduled to perform in Minsk on March 7.

“The members of the Council believe that with its work, the band openly propagates homosexuality, masochism and other perversions, as well as cruelty, violence and abusive language,” the Council said in a statement issued on Monday. “The group’s concerts often feature live acts of intercourse, ejaculation and acts of imitating the Nazis.”

“We looked through pictures and watched videos of Rammstein shows,” Mikalay Charhinets, chairman of the Council who heads the government-backed Union of Writers of Belarus, said in an interview with BelaPAN.

“They really show pornographic, violent and cruel scenes,” he said.

The Council wants officials who have permitted the show to watch the preview “to either ban the concert or bear responsibility for the propagation of violence, cruelty and Nazi ideology,” Mr. Charhinets said.

An organizer of the show told BelaPAN that no appeals for the preview had been submitted by the culture ministry or any organizations.

Founded in July 2009 at the suggestion of the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Union of Writers of Belarus, the Public Council on Morals includes around 30 members -- representatives of the Orthodox, Catholic, Judaic and Muslim denominations, public associations and art unions, as well as art figures, educators and scholars.

Its officially declared priority is to tackle problem issues in society.