Salihorsk authorities keep banning pickets

Aliaksandr Rymasheuski, chair of Salihorsk district executive committee, has banned three pickets scheduled for 17-19 February, referring to Par. 6 Art. 5 of the Mass Events Code.

According to Mr. Rymasheuski, the applicants failed to submit written undertakings.

“For over two months Salihorsk executive committee has pounced on every trifle in my applications for mass events in order to ban them. When the applications became legally flawless, the officials must have decided to play a trick”, says local pro-democratic activist Uladzimir Shyla.

The written undertaking may have been deliberately “lost”, says the activist.

“The thing is that they only register the application at the executive committee, while the undertaking is attached on a separate sheet of paper. So, one can speak of at least negligence by the committee’s officials, or of a deliberate destruction of the document”, says Mr. Shyla.