Press Conference of Justice Ministry
On 16 October the press conferences of the Ministry of Justice “About the activity of the Ministry of Justice on strengthening of the constitutional nationhood, protection of rights and interests of citizens” took place at the National press center.
The situation with the liquidation of public organizations caused the greatest interest of journalists.
According to the Minister, Mr. Heiken, Head of the OSCE Bureau, agreed with the process of liquidation of public organizations in Belarus. On the other hand, Mr. Halavanaw took no measures for dispersing of the action near the Ministry of Justice due to the fact that he had a meeting with Heiken, which means that the Minister wasn’t sure of his actions or was afraid. Here’s an excerpt from the press conference.
Correspondent of Deutsche Welle: “International human rights organizations are alarming in connection with liquidation of public organizations. Ambassador Heiken, Head of the OSCE Bureau in Belarus, has sent a letter to you about this. Do you disagree with the human rights activists and Mr. Heiken? How many organizations do you plan to close? Had “Viasna” received any warnings before you filed the liquidation suit to the Supreme Court?”
Minister Halavanaw: “Nobody plans liquidation of any public associations in advance. Mr. Heiken met with me and said that it is necessary to have some order in the country. By the way, he came at 3 p.m. on that very day, in the morning of which people held posters of those organizations that we liquidated, or, to be precise, courts liquidated them on our suits. Mr. Heiken said that it couldn’t be so in the German Federal Ministry of Justice. Every country must be in order. It was a real picketing. They must thank us for having not applied to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as there is an article that demands permission of the local authorities for every picketing. They stood there for a while and then went away. We forgot, I don’t know whether they had. What concerns “Viasna”, the materials are at court. If the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice are correct, the court will confirm them, if not – they will be rejected. This is all.”
