Another trial for banned picket to take place in Vitsebsk on 9 October
Vitsebsk regional
coordinator of the Movement “For Freedom” Khrystafor Zhaliaoau
and a representative of the organizing committee of the party
“Narodmaya Hramada”, Aliaksei Haurutsikau, filed an appeal
against the ban of the picket they intended to hold on 8 September.
They also intend to receive the permission to hold their action at
another time.
The picket was to have
been of informational nature: the activists were going to express
their protest against the deployment of
the Russian military bases on the territory of
Belarus. The site was chosen in accordance with the rulings
of the district executive committees of Vitsebsk – Park
of Culture named after the 30th anniversary of the Komsomol. However,
the action was prohibited on the basis of
Ruling № 881 of the
Vitsebsk City Executive Committee "On
Mass Events in Vitebsk", according to which the application
shall be accompanied by service contracts with
the police, medics and street cleaners.
The decision of the
city authorities provides this very sequence:
first the applicants must enter into service agreements with these
agencies, and only after this they can receive a permission to hold
their event. However, the police department of the Vitsebsk Regional
Executive Committee answered that the service agreement would not be
concluded with them as far as the event wasn't authorized by the
Pershamaiski District Police Executive Committee of Vitsebsk. It is
unclear where from the police took the information that hte action
wasn't authorized before entering into the service agreement is still
unclear. This is what the court is supposed to find: why
the order, prescribed by Ruling No. 881, was
violated.
Not
only the police officers, but also representatives of the Vitsebsk
City Central Polyclinic No. 1 are summoned to the court on 9 October
to explain why they refused to enter into a service agreement with
the activists. The official reason for the denial was "
in connection with the work of ambulance crews on
8 September 2013 in emergency mode".
Earlier,
the medics refused to send their cars to the opposition pickets “due
to seasonal diseases" and other similar
reasons. Such attitude of the state agencies,
has prevented opposition activists from holding their events for more
than three years already. Only “Zelengas” enterprise (responsible
for cleaning the streets) agrees to enter into service agreements
with the opposition. The police and the medics keep giving denials,
which results in the prohibition of the events by the authorities.
On 9 October A. Haurutsikau and Kh. Zhaliapau hope to prove
that the denial of the district administration is unfair and is a
baasis for the violation of the rights of citizens to hold mass
events, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus and
Articles 2, 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. The activists say
that the legislation on mass events is violated in Vitsebsk, as far
as the aforementioned ruling of the Vitsebsk City Executive Committee
contradicts it, and Vitsebsk citizens cannot exercise their legal
rights.
It should be noted that
it is not the first attempt to get an opportunity to hold a mass
event in Vitsebsk through court. Aliaksei Haurutsikau, Khrystafor
Zhaliapau and other activists have already tried to sue
the district administrations and the responsible authorities, but
to no avail: the right to hold mass events and
express one's views in public is still ignored in Vitsebsk.