Homel: Uladzimir Siakerka tries to find out whether the rally of pro-government communists and BRYU was permitted by the local authorities

February 2 Chairman of the Homel regional branch of the Belarusian Leftist Party "Fair World" Uladzimir Siakerka sent electronic appeal to Chairman of Homel City Executive Committee Piatro Kirychenka. Mr. Siakerka was outraged at receiving no response from the executive committee to his appeal of November 21, 2013, which is a violation of the law "On Appeals of Citizens and Legal Entities". The politician demands to be given an answer according to the law.

In late November, Uladzimir Siakerka appealed to the executive committee with a letter on the following matter. A rally on the anniversary of the October Revolution was held in Homel on November 7. Media reported that the organizers of the rally were Homel regional organization of the Communist Party of Belarus, the public organizations "Belaya Rus" and "Belarusian Republican Youth Union". In accordance with Articles 9 and 10 of the Law "On Appeals of Citizens” and in in order to use the experience of receiving permission for holding mass events the politician asked the executive committee to let him study the following documents: the application to the executive committee from the organizers of mass events, the undertaking for organizing and conducting the rally, service contracts for the medical service, guarding of the public order and cleaning the area, and the documents confirming the payment for these services, as well as the permission to carry out the event, issued by the executive committee.

The executive committee has still not answered this appeal, which made the leader of the left party to apply to the authorities again.

The matter is that according to the regulation of the Homel City Executive Committee "On Mass Events" organizers of pickets and rallies are obliged to conclude service contracts with the police, ambulance and street cleaners. The local oppositionists didn't manage to obtain permission for a single mass event in the last ten years. The executive committee responds to all their applications with denials, referring to the absence of paid service contracts with the public utilities and the ambulance, which, in their turn, refuse to enter into such contracts before being presented a permission of the executive committee.

That's why Mr. Siakerka wants to find out how other political parties and public associations manage to conclude contracts and to get permissions from the authorities.