Taken to court for satellite dish

Hordna dweller Volha Harmash is summoned to the court of Kastrychnitski district after mounting a satellite dish.

For a year Harmash family refused to remove the antenna from the wall of the house in Cosmonauts Avenue, where they have an apartment. Policemen received an order to take Volha Harmash, a teacher of English, to the court forcibly.

Maxim Harmash informed that on December 28, in the afternoon they received by post an official record written by the housing department concerning the satellite dish, and the writ from Kastrychnitski court.

“There were two letters from the local housing department and building-utilities administrator office No. 6. It was written on them, that they hadn’t been handed in, and there was a seal. Here we have two reports about an administrative violation, drawn up by a foreman of the housing office Mikalaenka stating that my wife Volha Harmash violated the Order No. 177 of 1999 of the Housing and public utilities Ministry and the Administrative Code by mounting a satellite dish,” the dweller of Hrodna told to Radio Svaboda.

Maxim Harmahs says that the satellite dish appeared there in 1998, when Volha Harmahs wasn’t his wife and was not living in that apartment.

“The most amazing thing is, that when we looked through the report, there were no signatures of me and my wife. It is written there that we had refused to sign the report, but how could be sign it? We have received it by post. In the third envelope there was a writ to the court of Kastrychnitski district as a violator in an administrative case,” the man noted.

Yesterday Harmash was told by policemen that an order to take his wife to the court by force had been received. Journalists asked the deputy head of Kastrychnitski district Police department Mikhail Charnyak why such an instruction had been issued.

“She does not want to attend the court to take part in the proceedings. He court decided to take her to the court forcibly. The court has a right for that, the decision has been made, and we were ordered to take her to the court, no matter desires she or not,” the policeman said.

However, Maxim Harmash says that he and his wife knew nothing about the court that had a session and had adopted some decision. Harmahs explained that they live outside the city, in Sapotskin, a native place of his wife.

As Radio Svaboda informed earlier, in the district capitals of Hrodna region (Lida, Slonim and Navahradak) and in Hrodna workers of housing departments visit houses and issue warnings to local inhabitants. Local newspapers publish addresses of the authorities, special announcements are placed to the entrance doors.

Those who had mounted satellite dishes without authorization are forced to remove them, but as a rule, almost everyone belongs to this category. There is no legal procedure of satellite dishes fixing, and there had never been one. Lawyers claim that there cannot be responsibility for self-willed mounting a satellite dish if there is no developed legal procedure of their authorisation.

Defenders of rights of customers also explain that interest to an independent TV channel “Belsat” in Hrodna region is growing. Local authorities fear that the population of the region would become well-informed and would response to problems more assertively.