Rallies with a demand to demolish Lenin monuments banned in Belarus

In Polatsk local authorities have banned a picket with collection of signatures for pulling down two Lenin monuments.

As Radio Svaboda informs, opposition activists from Polatsk have planned to hold a picket on April 23. In answer to their appeal they received a denial from the city executive committee.

As said by the member of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party and “young Belarus” campaign Ales Krutkin, the deputy chairman of Polatsk city executive committee Mikalay Illyushonak wrote that the picket “could undermine the public security ” on the square near “Rodina” cinema. Allegedly on the same day films about Charnobyl disaster are planned to be screened in the cinema on the same day.

Ales Krutkin states that it is the second case when city authorities do not allow to hold rallies in the place which had been allocated by themselves for such aims.

Despite of the fact that the authorities banned the picket, Polatsk oppositionists continue to collect signatures in support of demolition of Lenin monument neat the railway station and in the park in Karl Marx Avenue. A few hundreds of signatures have been collected. Activists plan to bring them to the city executive committee later.