Baranavičy activists challenge picket ban at Supreme Court

Human rights activist Siarhei Housha has filed a supervisory appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision of the Baranavičy City and District Court of january 27, 2015 and the determination of the Judicial Board on Civil Cases of the Brest Regional Court of March 19, 2015.

The courts of the first and second instance rejected his complaints against the ban on the picket for December 10, 2014 by the Baranavičy City Executive Committee.

Siarhei Housha points that he blankly disagrees both with the court verdicts and the decision of the Baranavichy CEC which, to his mind, illegally banned the picket dated to the 66th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The human rights activist points out that the city and the regional courts "did not notice" that the Baranavičy CEC had violated the law on mass events by failing to state the reasons for the ban on the event and missing the statutory terms for giving a reply. The both courts also ignored the arguments of the human rights activist about the illegality of the demand of the executive committee that the picket organizers enter into a service contract with the police to maintain public order during the mass event, which actually violates the Regulation No. 207 of the Council of Ministers of March 5, 2012. Mr. Housha believes that the most absurd were the trial statements of the representatives of the Baranavičy CEC that he failed to mention measures related to health care and cleaning of the territory after the picket.

“In our appeal we stated that the copies of the service contracts with the polyclinic and the public utilities were attached to it, and the copies were attached. The appeal to the CEC also includes the undertakings of the organizers of the mass event to organize and hold the event and secure the public order during it. However, the judges “didn't notice” these documents,” commented Siarhei Housha.

The human rights activist asks the Supreme Court to cancel the unreasonable and unlawful verdicts of the courts and the decision of Baranavičy CEC to ban the picket.