Prosecutor General's Office stops correspondence with former candidate for deputy

Chocimsk activist Valery Karankevich, a former candidate for deputy of Magiloŭ Regional Council of Deputies at Chocimsk constituency №54 and a candidate for the Chocimsk district council Khotimsk at Uzbiarežnaja constituency №13 in local elections in 2014, received an answer from the Prosecutor General of Belarus to his complaint.

In his answer, Deputy Prosecutor General Aliaksandr Lashyn informed Valery Karankevich that the correspondence with him concerning violation of his electoral rights during the March 2014 elections of deputies of local councils and disagreement with the actions of police officers during his administrative detention was terminated in accordance with the requirements of Articles 15, 21 of the Law "On appeals of citizens and legal entities" due to the absence of new circumstances relevant for the consideration of the appeal on the merits.

Mr. Lashyn also noted that following consideration of the previous appeals of Mr. Karankevich the latter had been repeatedly informed about the absence of grounds for the prosecutor's intervention and a personal audience with the leadership of the General Prosecutor's Office.

Valery Karankevich says he is not surprised with such a reaction of the Prosecutor General's Office to his appeal. "I've passed through fourteen various institutions with my appeals, to no avauk. The whole “vertical” of the prosecutorial supervision in our country fails to notice violation of my constitutional rights in the actions of the Chocimsk police,” notes Valery Karankevich. “Now the General Prosecutor's Office decides to stop correspondence with me at all, without having given a substantive response about the reasons for my detention by the police directly at the polling station before the counting of votes. Employees of Chocimsk police also detained me for no reasons at the parliamentary elections in 2012 and at the elections to local councils in the past year, whereas the prosecutor's office, to my amusement, keeps confirming the legality of their actions."

Let us remind that at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2014 candidate for deputy Valery Karankevich was detained by the police at polling station №3 in Chocimsk and taken to the Chocimsk Disrict Police Department. There he was held for about 40 minutes and then was released without charges. The alleged reason for the detention was an appeal of a member of the constituency election commission №54 Mikalai Tamashou. Due to the illegal detention, Valery Karankevich could not be present at the counting of ballots.

The former candidate for deputy repeatedly tried to challenge the actions of the Chocimsk district police department and Mahiloŭ, buit they came to the conclusion that the actions of the police officers "were legitimate and did not contradict the existing legislation."

Valery Karankevich believes that employees of Chocimsk police detained him unduly and illegally in order to prevent him from observing the vote counting, as well as to intimidate civil society activists in the Chocimsk district.