Belarus's Prosecutor General's Office has asked the country's Investigative Committee to examine a music video by Russian performer Yegor Creed following a backlash online, infohub.kz reports.
In a post on its Telegram channel, the Belarusian Prosecutor General's Office said Creed's video had sparked widespread public outcry and drawn negative reactions across social media. The office said Creed appears in the video wearing clothing bearing a stylized image of the main character from the film "Come and See." The designers who created the image used the film's poster, adding a tattoo and piercings to the character's portrait along with the words "Marking the Distance."
"The Prosecutor General's Office has proposed that the Investigative Committee examine the circumstances set out for signs of inciting social hatred or discord, glorifying Nazism, denying the genocide of the Belarusian people, and other crimes," the statement said.
According to RBC, "Come and See" is a Soviet war drama directed by Elem Klimov and released in 1985. The film tells the story of Flyora, a Belarusian teenager who joins the partisans during the Great Patriotic War and witnesses Nazi atrocities against civilians in occupied Belarus.
Creed himself said on his Telegram channel that all footage showing the long-sleeved top in the video had been blurred as a matter of urgency.
"I haven't seen 'Come and See' and hadn't heard of it, so I couldn't possibly have known that the image on the clothing referred to its poster. To me it was just a designer item I bought in a store, hanging on a shelf and on open sale. I put no political or historical message into this look. (...) Once again I apologize to everyone I offended; from now on I'll Google every image on every item I buy," Creed wrote.