Teddybear Airdrop Minsk 2012
An airplane, chartered by the Swedish advertising agency Studio Total, illegally entered the Belarusian airspace on 4 July and parachuted several hundred teddy bears with notes carrying pro-democracy messages.
Lukashenko sacked two top generals, the heads of Belarus' border guards and of Air Defense, for failing to intercept the Studio Total plane.
The plane dropped several hundred teddy bears, carrying cards and notes with pro-democracy, pro-freedom of speech and protest messages, over the Belarusian town of Ivyanets, near Minsk.
[1] The two people on board the teddy bear flight, Tomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey, spent about a year preparing for the airdrop operation.
[10] The Belarusian authorities initially issued stringent denials that the teddy bear airdrop ever occurred and that there was no unauthorized intrusion of the Belarus air space on 4 July.
[12] On 13 July authorities in Belarus arrested a 20-year-old student journalist, Anton Suryapin, who posted on his website, Bnp.by, some of the first photos related to the teddy bear airdrop.
[16] In early August 2012 two journalists, Irina Kozlik and Yulia Doroshkevich, who took photos of teddy bears in solidarity with Suryapin and Basharimau, were arrested in Minsk and then convicted of "violating the law on protests" and fined the equivalent of several hundred U.S.
[2] President Lukashenko was reported to have been greatly angered by the teddy bear airdrop and by the failure of the Belarusian military to intercept it, which he viewed as a significant national security lapse.
[21][22] The summons were posted on the Belarus KGB website and delivered to Studio Total by e-mail and stated that failure to comply could result in "correctional work for up to two years, or imprisonment for up to six months.
"[21] Studio Total refused to comply with the summons and instead offered to discuss the airdrop operation directly with President Lukashenko if he visits Sweden.
[citation needed] The European Union held an urgent meeting of its diplomats on Friday, 10 August 2012, in Brussels to discuss the EU response to the escalating row between Belarus and Sweden.
[27] Earlier reports indicated that the meeting was expected to result in a mass recall of the EU ambassadors in Belarus to their home countries.
