The opposition of Vitsebsk region have to a great extend lost opportunities to maintain large-scale participation in the election campaign, after it was announced that many of the pro-democratic activists were not registered by local election commissions.
The city of Hrodna 14 out of 30 constituencies will be non-alternative, with a total of 55 candidates registered. Dzmitry Slutski, the UCP Hrodna city office chair, was refused registration due to an error in his income declaration. Other opposition activists who were refused registration as candidates include two members of the ‘Just World’ party.
13 Babruisk members of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party were refused registration as candidates due to various reasons, e.g. Viachaslau Sheleh’s application was turned down after the election commission declared 3 signatures collected by his campaign team fake.
Civil Rights Defenders (Sweden), Belarusian Human Rights House (Lithuania), Human Rights House Foundation (Norway) and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee condemn the detention of three activists of the Human Rights Center ‘Viasna’. "They were supposed to have applied for permission to assembly, but since the organisation they represent has been denied official registration several times, the application would not have been granted. In practice their right to assembly is severely restricted" says AneTusvik Bonde, Regional Manager at the Human Rights House Foundation.
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