Mahilou city authorities forbid municipal pickets

Protests against increasing utility bills are planned to be held near the building of the former culture center.

Activists of the organizing committee on creating the Freedom and Progress Party planned to have pickets to gather signatures for solving community problems, such as polyclinic construction, repairing roads and pedestrian street extending, but the pickets were banned in Mahilou, BelaPAN reports.

The activists were going to offer the dwellers of three city districts to give their signatures for polyclinic construction near Dimitrov and Movchanski Streets, extending pedestrian Kashtanovaya Street and repairing roads near garages close to Khimvolokno production association.

The supposed places of pickets are situated far from the deserted building of the former culture center of Kuibyshev plant (Chelyuskintsev Street), a site appointed by the city executive committee for street actions. The applicants noted this fact in applications. They said there’s no point in holding pickets in that city district, as people living there are not interested in the problems raised.

However, the Mahilou city executive committee decided the best way was to ban pickets. It says there’s only one place for holding opposition pickets and meetings – near the deserted building of the former culture center.

The activists plan to go to law as they find such refusals absolutely wrong in this situation.

What to the signature gathering, enough signatures were collected during door-to-door campaign. The signatures, around 500 ones for each of the problems, will be sent to the city authorities.