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