Tatsiana Reviaka appeals the ban on import of “Enlightened by Belarusian Issue” at Hrodna Regional Court

Human rights activist Tatyana Reviaka lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Ashmiany District Court , which declared inadmissible the expert examination of the book by Ales Bialiatski "Enlightened by Belarusian Issue", but nevertheless banned the import of the book to the territory of Belarus.

Bear in mind that on February 11 the Ashmiany District Court dismissed the appeal of the human rights defenders against actions of the Ashmiany customs, which seized from her 41 copies of the book “Enlightened by Belarusian Issue”. According to a decision of this body, motivated by the results of two customs examinations, the seized books are to be re-exported to Lithuania.

Tatsiana Reviaka appealed to the Board on Civil Cases of the HrodnaRegional Court, saying that the court's decision is unlawful, unjustified and irrevocable.

The court correctly found that the customs examination was carried out with violations of the Customs Code of the Customs Union (CU) . However, the findings of the customs examination are regarded by the court as an official document and accepted as documentary evidence.

"This conclusion of the court is incorrect”, says T. Reviaka, “being contrary to the rules of civil procedure law: in accordance with Article 193 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Republic of Belarus, official documents are issued by the public authorities within their jurisdiction in compliance with established rules: if an official document is challenged by party of the case or by another person, legally interested in the outcome of the case, officials of state bodies present to the court the evidence of the legality of issuance of the document and the verity of its contents."

The conclusions, referred to by the court, aren't official documents, as far as they were issyued not by government agencies, but by some non-existent authority – "the expert committee". Neither the expert commission, nor the university, where the commission members work, are state agencies entitled to issue such documents.

Therefore, Tatsiana Reviaka appeals to the judicial panel of the Hrodna Regional Court demanding to cancel the judgment of the Ashmiany District Court of February 11, 2014, which dismissed her appeal against the actions of the Ashmiany customs, and issue a new verdict, which would support her demands.

Human rights activist Tatsiana Reviaka filed an appeal against the Ashmiany District Court over the ban on the import of the book of literary articles and essays "Englightened by Belarusian Issue", authored by Ales Bialiatski. After two "expert examinations" of the book, the customs officers demanded that T. Reviaka re-export the seized copies of the book to the territory of Lithuania, where it was published. Judge Tatsiana Yemelyanovich found the expert examinations uunacceptable, but took them into account as expert opinion and banned the import of the books in Belarus.