Yan Dziarzhautsau: the ruling of the city executive committee is impossible to implement

Yan Dziarzhautsau, a member of the Conservative-Christian Party “Belarusian Popular Front”, filed an application for holding a picket on 7 November. “According to the ruling of the executive committee, we must supply the application with service agreements, concluded with the police, the city medics and the public utilities”, he says.

The medics are to render medical aid to the action participants in the case of necessity, the police – to guard the public order at it and the public utilities – to clean the action site after its end.

Yan Dziarzhautsau applied to these agencies for concluding the service agreements, but received an answer only from one of them. The director general of the city’s public utilities Iliinets wrote that the agreement could not be concluded as other enterprises, “Zelenhas” and “Hardarmost” were employed for cleaning the streets.

However, as far as the public utilities service is indicated in the ruling, not these enterprises, it appears to be impossible to implement it. Civil and political activists regularly face such situations all over Belarus. Not a single action of the opposition has been authorized in Vitsebsk for the last three years. Yan Dziarzhautsau thinks the only thing left is to apply against the self-will of the city authorities at court.