Mahiliou: candidate for deputy banned to hold electoral meeting

Activist of the civil association Belarusian Popular Front Adradzhenne Anatol Tsydzik, candidate for the Mahiliou city Council of Deputies, was banned to hold a meeting with electors on the territory of his election constituency.

Anatol tried to hold the meeting on the territory of his constituency, not in the only place that had been determined for such actions by the city authorities, as the latter is situated on the outskirts. That's why the candidate filed an appropriate application with Valiantsina Yudakimava, Chairperson of the local public services and amenities, Chairperson of the constituency election commission #48 on elections to the regional Council of Deputies. He asked the official to provide him with a place for the meeting.

Predictably enough, he was answered that there was only one official place for electoral meetings in Mahiliou – near the house 64a in Chaliuskintsy Street.

Human rights defender Barys Bukhel comments: 'The matter is that the ground near the former Culture Palace of the man-made fiber plant named after Kuibyshau in Chaliuskintsy Street 64a used to be the traditional place for all mass actions. However, the wrong address, Chaliuskintsy Street, 64, is indicated in the state-owned newspaper Vesnik Mahiliova and at the official website of the Mahiliou city executive committee. That's why people are still directed to the wrong address by the officials. Chaliuskintsy Street 64 is a four-stored building that sides with the city center of ceremonial services. I have repeatedly addressed the chairperson of the Mahiliou regional election commission with the request to discriminate in this issue and was answered that they would soon doo it and publish the correct address for holding mass actions by candidates for deputies. Two editions of Vesnik Mahiliova have been published since then, but the information wasn't refuted, which witnesses that the election commission doesn't know what to do. The house in Chaliuskintsy Street, 64a is in disrepair and is ringed with an emergency ribbon, whereas house 64 is situated near the city center of ceremonial services and there's no convenient ground for such actions. That's why it can be said that candidates for the local Councils of Deputies of Mahiliou were deprived of the opportunity to hold meetings with the electorate at all.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections