Brest: picket in support of political prisoners banned too
Human rights activist Uladzimir
Vialichkin applied for holding a one-hour picket to the Brest City Executive
Committee.
The aim of the action was attracting public attention to political prisoners in
Belarus and demanding their release and rehabilitation, BelaPAN news agency
reports.
Vialichkin planned to hold a picket with the number of participants not more
than five near the Park of Peacekeeping Soldiers, where the city authorities
allow carrying out mass events.
The human rights activists received an official reply from the city executive
committee on 7 December. It reads the picket was banned because in accordance
with the agenda, peacekeeping soldiers from the Nizhny Novgorod Region would
hold memorial events in the park on 10 December.
“I do not think five picketers could hinder their programme. I think the reason
for the ban is another. The authorities did not permit the uncomfortable
picket. I regard the ban as violation of my right to free expression,”
Vialichkin noted.
A rally on occasion of an anniversary of the adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights was also banned in Brest.
It was planned to carry out the rally in the Park of Peacekeeping Soldiers to
remind Brest dwellers about the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and turn public attention to problems of human rights defense
in the region.
