Court in Barysau: members of election commissions against opposition activist

On September 10 the case of an unregistered candidate for deputy of the “chamber of representatives” in Barysau rural constituency No. 63 Syarhei Salash is to be considered in Barysau regional court. He is charged with violation of Article 9.2 of the Administrative Code of Belarus.

It has been informed by the press-service of the civil campaign “Human rights activists for free election”.

The deputy chairman of Barysau regional executive committee Valyantsin Shutko and a librarian of the secondary school No. 11 Tatsyana Stasava (at the moment she is a secretary of the district election commission in the constituency No.62) charge one of the most well-known democratic activists of the city, the leader of the regional branch of the Belarusian Popular Front party, of insulting them, calling them “election falsifiers”. According to the insulted, the incident took place during the campaign for collection of signatures for nomination of candidates for deputies in the parliamentary elections, in the office of the chairman of Barysau council of deputies Vasil Barannik on August 4.

According to reports, the accusation could be supported by a few workers of the regional executive committee, in particular, by the chief expert of education department of Barysau regional executive committee V. Malein and an expert of employment and social security department of Barysau regional executive committee V. Danskaya.

Syarhei Salash is convinced that the charges are absurd. Today he is set to appeal to the court to summon as a witness the head of his initiative group, a lawyer Aleh Matskevich, the leader of “For Freedom” movement Alyaksandr Milinkevich and a press photographer of “Nasha Niva” newspaper Artsyom Lyava. All of them accompanied him when he visited Barysau regional executive committee on August 4, in order to attest signatures collected by a member of his inititiave group Alyaksandr Milinkevich in support of Salash’s nomination as a candidate for deputy in Barysau rural constituency No. 63.

Syarhei Salash views bringing up the insult case as one of the methods of political pressure with the aim to send away an unwanted rival for a deputy seat. According to him, it is not accidentally that he had been summoned to a police department to an investigator on the last day of documents’ registration, August 18.

The session of the court is to take place in the office No. 302 at 4 p.m. and should be open for public.