Zhodzina authorities ban a picket dated to the World Day against the Death Penalty

Aliaksei Lapitski
Aliaksei Lapitski

On 8 October, two days before the picket, its organizer, human rights defender Aliaksei Lapitski, received a letter from the Zhodzina City Executive Committee by registered mail through the Main Post Office.

By this letter he was informed about the refusal of the authorities to consider his application for holding a picket on 10 October 2013 in the place, determined for such events by the executive committee, reports the Belarusian Legal Portal.

Thus, the local authorities factually banned the picket on the World Day against the Death Penalty. According to the letter, signed by the head of the Zhodzina CEC Yury Shary, this was done due to the failure of the applicant to enter into service contracts with the police, ambulance and community services.

However, it was impossible to enter into such agreements which was confirmed by the answers given by these institutions to the preliminary order for holding the mass event in Zhodzina, which have been passed to the Zhodzina City Court together with a lawsuit against the picket ban.

The public activist notes that recently there has developed a bad practice when applicants cannot get a timely response to their application as the Main Post Office reports about the presence of such correspondence at the last moment.

At the same time, the date of the official answer, indicated in such a letter, doesn't violate the legal terms of answering, and all delays with the delivery of the correspondence are explained by a reference to the absence of the addressee at the place of the residence.

However, Mr. Lapitski alleges that during the time indicated inthe letter he stayed at home because of illness and didn't go out, whereas the information about the repeated notification was thrown into his postbox (which was regulardly checked everyday) just two days prior to the event, on 8 October 2013.

This notification cannot be called a document. In violation of the legal requirements, it doesn't contain the seal of the post office and the signature of the responsible officer. Other important details, from which it could be learned when the first attempt to notify the addressee was taken, are absent as well.

According to Belarusian Legal Portal

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