Vitsebsk: Picketing Permitted at City’s Outskirts

Recently the chair of Vitsebsk office of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Pavel Levin has applied to Vitsebsk city executive committee for authorization of a picket. He intended to hold the action on 10 December and dedicate it to the Universal Day of Human Rights. 

Levinau received an answer from the deputy chair of Vitsebsk city executive committee Pavel Losich. The picket was prohibited. The reason is traditional and banal: the authorities of Vitsebsk and many other towns and cities of Belarus have specified the places where mass actions could be held. In Vitsebsk Mazuryn Park – a forest at the outskirts of the city – was specified as the place for pickets. Now the human rights activist intends to appeal to Vitsebsk city court against the refusal.