Biaroza officials again regard solidarity with political prisoners as "inciting ethnic hatred"

Biaroza human rights defenders and social activists have been again denied the opportunity to publicly voice their disagreement with the tax on the unemployed and the presence of political prisoners in the country.

The picket they intended to hold on June 28 was banned by the Biaroza District Executive Committee. The denial of permission was signed by the deputy head of the Committee Yauhen Tarasiuk, and the ban – by its head, Yury Narkevich.

The official reason for the ban is that “one of the paragraphs of the picket aim contains incitement of national enmity or hatred".

This reason has already become a cliché for Biaroza authorities. A similar picket had been banned for March 25, and the appeal against the ban is being considered by the Biaroza District Court. Brest Regional Executive Committee, in its turn, upheld the ban, but pointed out that the picket had been banned rightly as "citizens M. Statkevich, I. Alinevich, M. Dziadok, Ya. Vas'kovich, A. Prakapenka and Yu. Rubtsou, called “political prisoners” in your appeal for holding a picket, dated March 9, 2015, have been convicted on various articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. They include such crimes as the organization of mass disorders, hooliganism committed by group of persons, deliberate destruction or damage of property and insult of the judge."