Chernobyl March Applicants Sue Minsk Authorities

23.04.2007.

Today applicants for permission to hold Chernobyl March rally Aliaksei Yanukevich, Anatol Sidarevich, Yury Zenkovich and Valiantsina Palevikova filed a complaint to Maskouski court of Minsk about the ruling of Minsk city executive committee. The Charter’97 press-center learned that from Aliaksei Yanukevich, deputy chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front Party. As we have informed, organizers had submitted an application to Minsk city executive committee with a request to sanction a Chernobyl March rally on April 26 at 6 p.m. in Yakub Kolas Square.

Nevertheless, Minsk city executive committee sanctioned the march on the route from the Academy of Sciences to Bangalore Square. Applicants believe that by this ruling Minsk city executive committee violated Article 6 of the Law on Mass Rallies, as the decision has been made without prior discussion with the applicants.

“We find this decision illegal; in general, the practice of Minsk executive committee’s acting not in the interest of Minsk dwellers, but in the interests of the leadership of the country, is outrageous and intolerable. By all available means we are to struggle for a possibility for people to realize their constitutional rights and hold rallies in the center of the city,” Aliaksei Yanukevich told the Charter’97 press-center.