Rita Dakota for the first time revealed why Belarusian security forces detained her mother in 2022

Rita Dakota with her mother Svetlana Gerasimovich. All photos here and further are from the artist's Instagram.

In 2020, Belarusian singer Rita Dakota, who at that moment lived and actively performed in Russia, supported the protests in Belarus and released the song "Go Away," which she addressed to Lukashenka.

After this, Dakota herself was blacklisted as an artist — she was no longer allowed to perform in her homeland. And in 2022, information about the detention of Svetlana Gerasimovich, Rita's mother, appeared in one of the pro-Lukashenka Telegram channels.

For several years, Rita Dakota refused to answer questions about her mother. She said that her mother would tell what happened herself when she deemed it necessary.

And now the artist has finally decided to tell what happened then. According to Dakota, she remained silent for a long time because she was worried that publicity would harm her mother: "I was afraid that my disclosure would only make things worse for her, that they would find her and separate us for many years."

Dakota writes that her mother was an elementary school teacher:

"Being the fairest, most empathetic, and caring person on this earth, my mother could not pass by a crowd of security forces who were beating a young man lying on the ground with army boots on his head in Minsk in broad daylight. Mom shouted that this was wrong, tried to appeal to humanity. Of course, no one listened to the pensioner, rudely brushing her aside."

According to Rita, her mother returned home deeply affected by what she saw — and wrote some emotional comment on social media: "For this, she was accused of 'public insult to a representative of authority in connection with the performance of his official duties' and 'cyberbullying'."

Павялічыць

Rita says that her mother miraculously managed to leave Belarus because she was supposed to be imprisoned.

After the detention, Svetlana began to experience severe health problems. She had to undergo an operation, and the woman ended up in a wheelchair.

Павялічыць

And the streak of bad luck in Rita's life did not end — at some point, she was forbidden to perform in Russia as well (she did not support the war in Ukraine).

During this time, the artist took care of her mother. She lost a large part of her income due to the concert ban, put her life on hold, and wrote only one song in a year — "I Have Myself."

Now the singer lives in the USA.

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