Civil activists of Vitsebsk litigate with medics
The chief physician of Vitsebsk central
city polyclinic refused to conclude service agreements with the
organizers of the street rallies planned for 25 March. The head of
Vitsebsk regional branch of the "For Freedom" movement
Khrystafor Zhaliapau applied to court, asking to oblige the medics to
conclude a service agreement with him. The preliminary hearings on
the case took place on 12 March at Kastrychnitski District Court of
Vitsebsk.
The sides didn't reach an agreement at it. As a
result, Judge Ihar Rymsha appointed the next sitting on 14
March.
Mr. Zhaliapau believes that the administration of the
central polyclinic evades from the implementation of ruling #881 of
Vitsebsk City Executive Committee, "On mass events in the city o
Vitsebsk":
"The city executive committee decided
that the applicants must supply their applications with agreements
with the public utilities, the regional police department and the
central city polyclinic for serving the mass events organized by
them. We are obliged to conclude such agreements, whereas these
organizations consider it possible to ignore the ruling of the
executive committee. We are not allowed to hold the events due to the
absence of such agreements. And we cannot conclude them, as far as
the responsible officials keep inventing various reasons to evade
from it. In particular, the chief physician of the central polyclinic
wrote that it was impossible to conclude the agreement as far as the
medics were very busy due to an epidemic of seasonal illnesses. Thus,
he predicted an epidemic in Vitsebsk a month before the
rally!"
However, the legal adviser of the polyclinic
voiced another version at the court sitting: the agreement was not
concluded as far as am ambulance car was to be sent to the mass
event, whereas such cars were at the disposal of the ambulance
service, not the polyclinic. Then it becomes unclear why the city
authorities demanded to conclude service agreements with the
polyclinic, not the ambulance.
In fact, this situation witnesses
that the right to opinion and expression are violated on a systemic
basis in Belarus, a clearly authoritarian state.
