Festival in honour of Battle of Milavidy banned

The Baranavichy district executive committee forbade to hold the Milavidy Festival on occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Milavidy.

It was planned to hold the festival on June 2, Viasna human rights centre reports.

Festival organisers Viktar Syrytsa, Viachaslau Bolbat and Tereza Silivonchyk received a letter from deputy head of the executive committee Anatoly Filanchuk saying that “the cultural department of the Baranavichy district executive committee plans an event on occasion of the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Milavidy of 1863, so holding another event on the same occasion is not necessary”.

Activist Viktar Syrytsa says: “Article 51 of the Constitution of Belarus gives us the right to participate in cultural life. We applied for holding the festival in honour of Kastus Kalinouski's rebels almost two months before the event. We had contracts with the local police forces, the polyclinic and the utility office to serve the event on June 2. Viachaslau Bolbat and I met with Filanchuk and head of the local ideological department Dzmitry Varvashenia and invited them and the cultural department to the Milavidy festival on June 2. None of them said they planned an official event on June 2 or offered another date.”

Viktar Syrytsa thinks the initiative group for holding the festival fulfilled all requirements of the Law on Mass Events. The district executive committee had no grounds to ban the Milavidy Festival.

The activist also says the initiative group will think how to celebrate this important historical event in another way.