Human rights defender Tatsiana Reviaka gets questioned concerning the receipt of finances from Ales Bialiatski
The tax agencies use
new ways to pressurize the member of the Council of the Human Rights
Center “Viasna”, the president of the Belarusian Human Rights
House Tatsiana Reviaka.
The examination of the assets and
income of the human rights defender for 2004-2010, conducted by the
Pershamaiski District Tax Inspection, found no violations in the
documents which were provided by her. However, as it was found during
the examination, data from the criminal case of Ales Bialiatski have
been included in her case.
Bear in mind that in the documents
of the Lithuanian and Polish banks which became the basis of the
accusative verdict to Bialiatski, contained information about the
means which were transferred to his colleagues, including Tatsiana
Reviaka, for human rights activities. All people who were mentioned
in these documents were interrogated as witnesses during the
preliminary investigation and the trial of Ales Bialiatski. They did
not deny receiving the financing, but refused to tell how they were
spend, to who they were transferred, etc., referring to Article 27 of
the Constitution, guaranteeing the right of individuals not to
testify against themselves and their families.
Though the
Ministry of Justice of Lithuania disproved the presented bank
information, the court considered all means that were mentioned in
the documents as the personal income of Ales Bialiatski from which no
taxes were paid. The human rights defender was sentenced to 4.5 years
of imprisonment with the confiscation of property and compensation of
the “damage”, which included the taxes and the fine for their
untimely payment.
As far as the information from the criminal
case of the head of the Human Rights Center “Viasna” was passed
to the tax agencies, his personal income can be also considered to be
the personal income of his colleagues.
On 20 and 27 November
2012 Tatsiana Reviaka was twice questioned by the senior tax
inspector of the Pershamaiski District Tax Inspection Valiantsina
Burava about the sums standing in the criminal case against Ales
Bialiatski, which had been allegedly transferred to Tatsiana Reviaka.
According to Burava, this information had been passed to the
district inspection by the “higher organs of the Ministry of Dues
and Taxes of the Republic of Belarus”. However, the inspector
didn't manage to answer on whose initiative these materials had been
passed there. The same “higher organs” initiated the examination
of Reviaka's income and assets for the last ten years.
Tatsiana
Reviaka was proposed to answer the questions concerning the accounts
in the Lithuanian bank, the purposes of their opening. Though in the
protocol of the questioning it was stated that excerpts from the bank
information on accounts of AO DnB NORD Bank in Vilnius were present
in the case, the inspector refused to let Tatsiana Reviaka study
them. In this situation the human rights activist refused to give any
comments.
The inspector Burava stated that the tax inspection
would hold a check-up on the information received from Bialiatski, as
a result of which it would be decided whether the means which had
been allegedly transferred to Tatsiana Reviaka would be considered as
her personal income from which no taxes were paid.
The Human
Rights Center “Viasna” considers such steps of the tax agencies
as persecution of human rights defenders for their professional
activities and yet another means to pressurize the organization,
whose work does not stop after the arrest of its head Ales Bialiatski
and the confiscation of the central office.