Mikalai Autukhovich: We Are To Press For Registration Again And Again

The government has once again refused to register the Committee for the Support of Entrepreneurship “Salidarnasts.”

The Justice Ministry of Belarus denied registration to the republican public association “the Committee for the Support of Entrepreneurship “Salidarnasts,” Radio Svaboda reports.

The officials referred to the fact that the founders had filed invalid documents for registration.

According to the Ministry of Justice, the name of the public association was listed as “the Committee for the Support of Entrepreneurship “Salidarnasts” in the application for registration, and in the protocol on the constitutive meeting results – “the Committee of Entrepreneurs “Salidarnasts.” The second document was recognized invalid on these grounds.

The ministry has found other issues: the date of birth of one of Salidarnasts’ founders filed in the list with an error, and the place of work of another one is referred to as “Taxi Carriage,” although the legal name is “Taxi Carriage 163.”

Salidarnasts’ leader Mikalai Autukhovich said that the next constituent congress of the association will be held on October 31:

“The lawyers, who made our documents ready, said that the Ministry of Justice was supposed to give us time for error correcting. After all, when it comes to an error in the company's name, then if there was another company with the same name “Taxi Carriage,” there would be no questions. And if there are no such firms, they could just clarify – why is “163” not specified? That is, these are errors that should have been corrected before the issue of registration. We will apply for registration again and again. We will correct these errors, and we will wait for the decision. But if we are not registered in Belarus, we will register overseas.”

Human rights center Viasna lawyer Pavel Sapelka considers the refusal to register Salidarnasts to be a direct violation of the right to association. He notes that minor flaws in a large volume of submitted documents cannot be a ground for refusal of registration.

Salidarnasts submitted the documents for registration to the Ministry of Justice on 5 September.