Prisoners’ Relatives Sue Minsk City Executive Committee for Picket Ban

The Belarusian women whose relatives had been sentenced to long prison terms on criminal and civil cases have thrice applied to Minsk city executive commission for authorization of a picket under a slogan Liberty to illegally imprisoned. They received refusals all three times. These women aren’t activists of political parties or NGOs. They acquainted with one another in the corridors of the Supreme Court, prosecutor general’s office and the presidential administration and understood that they won’t manage to defend their rights alone. That’s why they decided to act together.

˜The aim of our picket was to demand liberation of the illegally sentenced persons, claim justice and condemn the bureaucracy at courts and prosecutors’ offices and corruption of the law machinery’, runs the suit to Minsk Maskouski borough court, signed by Halina Iubko.

In the first two cases Minsk city executive committee refused to authorize the picket because the applicants didn’t attach their undertakings and didn’t mention the places of work. The third time the refusal had no explanations. Instead the deputy chair of Minsk city executive committee Mikhail Tsitsiankou considered the picket as an attempt to influence the court decisions, though the women’s relatives are already in prisons.

Now the women intend to defend their right to peaceful assembly through court.

We should remind that on 2 March they picketed the Belarusian embassy in Kyiv (Ukraine) with such posters as ˜Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus – resign’, ˜Supreme Court – resign’ etc. the women also tried to pass a letter to Lukashenka, but no workers of the Embassy came out.