Justice Ministry Refuses to Register ‘Viasna’

28.08.2007. Tags: unregistered organizations.

According to the official site of the Ministry of Justice, ‘the charter of the association does not comply with the law of the Republic Belarus on public associations’.

In particular, the title of the organization under setup is similar to a public association previously terminated by the resolution of the Supreme Court of Belarus. Furthermore, the Ministry of Justice remarks, the charter of the association does not contain concrete targets but implies the possibility of the association to act for gaining other targets, not mentioned in the charter … Separate personal data of the association founders are not true: dates of birth, places of employment are not true, the surnames are given with errors in spelling’.

Apart from the above –mentioned the ministry if justice remarks, ‘according to the information from the interior ministry, 20 founders out of 69 were charged with administrative offenses, some of them being 5 times convicted’.

As the BelaPAN was informed by the lawyer and human rights activist Uladzimir Labkovich the organizational committee on the establishment of the Viasna association was to wait for the official reply of the ministry of justice. ‘We shall study it thoroughly and, probably, lodge a claim against the ministry of justice’s decision’, Uladzimir Labkovich said. But we shall avoid fanatism as we well understand that the resolution of the ministry if justice is political and Supreme Court of Belarus is likely to second it.

The registration of the human rights organization is not anymore envisaged because, according to him, in this case ‘it will not have any legal rights in Belarus’.

The document for the public human rights association Viasna ‘public human rights associations were submitted to the Ministry of Justice 23 July, The organization under establishment is an assignee to the human rights center Viasna which was terminated by the resolution of the Supreme Court of Belarus in October 2003.