Brest residents appeal discriminative ruling on mass events

On 1 June Brest human rights activists passed to the Brest region court and procuracy a note of protest against the ruling of the executive committee imposing unlawful restrictions on freedom of assembly. The note was signed by about 200 residents of Brest.

According to the representative of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee in the Brest region Ihar Maslouski (in the photo), the note states that ruling #1210 “About mass events in the city of Brest”, adopted by Brest authorities on 30 June 2011, violates Article 35 of the Constitution and provisions of the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Mass Events”. In particular, it states that the applicant must attach service agreements with police, medics and communal utilities to the application, and the payment for the services must be done at least one day before the action, otherwise the official permit is to be annulled.

However, according to Article 10 of the Law “On Mass Events”, such payment must be performed within ten days after the action. According to the protest note, civil activists repeatedly tried to conclude service agreements with the aforementioned agencies, but received denials with references to the absence of agreement of the authorities and administration.

“After the adoption of Ruling #1210 almost all actions, organized by democratic activists, have been banned with reference to these norms,” states Mr. Maslouski. “That’s why the signers of the note stated that by adopting this ruling the city authorities introduced discriminative rules of organization and holding of mass events in the city, thus violating international laws concerning civil rights and liberties, as well as articles of the Constitution and provisions of the Law “On Mass Events”.