Justice department in Mahilou sues human rights defenders

A lawsuit demanding to suspend the work of the Mahilou human rights centre for three months has been sent to the regional court.

According to the suit, the centre “failed to submit the documents to register the changes in the registered office”. The organisation received two warnings that were not appealed against, the suit says. The revealed violations of the law have not been corrected, Radio Svaboda reports.

The human rights centre says it has the registered office. The documents were submitted to the justice department, but the changes in the centre's stature were not registered. Officials said the documents contained a wrong size of the office and ordered to correct the mistake.

The human rights defenders say the owner of the premises, who initially agreed to rent it out, refused to again sign the supplement to the contract with the new measurement.

“He was pressed,” Uladzimir Krauchanka, the head of the human rights centre, says. “It is a wide-spread practice of relations between the authorities and such organisation as ours. They don't need the organisations that provide legal advice to citizens who cannot find it in other places or consider it too expensive. We also record facts of corruption.”

The Mahilou human rights centre was founded 16 years ago. It is the only registered regional human rights organisation in Belarus.

The centre's chairman heads the commission of the department of justice in the Mahilou regional executive committee that controls prisons and correctional facilities in the region. Human rights activists also monitor judicial violations.

If the regional court pronounced judgement in favour of the justice department, the activities of the human rights centre will reduced to correcting violations of legislation.