Goethe Institute has shut down its Belarus office from July 30, its Secretary General Johannes Ebert has announced.
Earlier, Belarusian authorities demanded that it and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) suspend their operations in the country.
“This is the first time that Goethe Institute, whose 157 offices work freely worldwide, finds itself in such a situation. We very much regret this demand by the Belarusian leadership and we hope to be able to continue our work in Belarus soon,” Ebert was quoted by the institute’s official site as saying.
“It is at this difficult time that we received words of solidarity and support from many people in Belarus, for which our Goethe team is very grateful. This resonance makes us what we have always wanted to be: a space created with the aid of language and culture. As long as there are people with a spiritual attitude to co-existence, there is a culture and therefore a basis for our work,” the institute said on Facebook.
Goethe Institute is a nongovernment organization which promotes the German language. It has worked in Belarus since 1993. DAAD opened an information bureau in Minsk in 2003.
