Brest: trade union activist struggle for freedom of peaceful assemblies

Valiantsin Lazarenkau, head of the Brest regional unit of the Free Trade Union of Belarus, applied to the Brest Region Court, trying to prove that the decisions taken by the Brest City Executive Committee concerning mass events are almost impossible to implement.

First of all, it concerns the ruling of the Brest CEC concerning the procedure of holding mass events in Brest. In particular, according to it one must conclude service agreements with police, medics and public utilities before applying for the authorization of an action.

However, as stated by Lazarenkau, it is almost impossible to implement such requirements, as there are no sample texts of such agreements. “Moreover, when I came to the appropriate agencies in order to conclude such agreements, I was told that they didn't know how to do it,” says the trade union activist. “As it turned out, I was the first person to apply to them with such an issue!”