Justice Ministry finally denied registration to BCD party

Co-chairmen of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party call the decision by the authorities illegal and ungrounded. According to them, the Justice Ministry has simply performed a political order.

The information that the Justice Ministry of Belarus had denied state registration to the Belarusian Christian Democracy party (BCD party) has been published today at the website of the Justice Ministry of Belarus.

“In the process of study of the documents offered for registration of the BCD party, it has been found that the list of founders and the minutes of the founding congress contain inaccurate or false information. The list of founders of the BCD party includes persons who hadn’t been taking part in the meetings for nomination of delegates of the founding congress of the BCD party, and in the work of the founding congress, and hadn’t signed the list of founders of the party,” the Justice Ministry explained, adding that “authority of delegates who were taking part in the BCD founding congress, hadn’t been checked by the credentials commission properly, and because of that persons who hadn’t been elected as delegated, were present at the congress as delegates”.

A number of founders of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party couldn’t name the date and place of holding the congress which they allegedly had attended, and whom they had elected as delegates for the BCD founding congress, the Justice Ministry specified. They also noted that “facts of misleading persons who had singed the list of founders of the BCD party have been detected, about what document they were signing”.

Co-chairmen of the BCD party categorically retort charges of the Justice Ministry.

“We believe that the decision of the Justice Ministry is far-fetched and unsubstantiated. Though we understand that these actions are not promising success, but we are going to file a complaint to the Supreme Court. But the denial of registration won’t influence activities of the BCD. Recognition of Belarusians is more important for us than recognition of Belarusian officials,” a co-chairman of the organizing committee for creation of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party Alyaksei Shein said in an interview to the Charter’97 press-centre.

As said by Alyaksei Shein, the grounds for non-registration of the party won’t hold water.

“The main reason named by the Justice Ministry is that people allegedly hadn’t confirmed their participation in meetings where delegated for the congress had been nominated. Many people were summoned to police and prosecutor’s office, intimidated, and some of them (just a few out of more that a thousand of founders) could not correctly name the number of delegates of the congress. But it is impossible to tell the exact number of delegates of the congress after 2 months! It is always possible to find people who would confuse something. I think that it should be noted that in the previous denial of registration to us which have been cancelled, it was said that we allegedly transferred to a wrong account. And now they have understood it is laughable, and started to invent new reasons. Activists of the BCD party were intimidated, they faced a harsh choice: a signature as a founder of the party or their job. One woman even was threatened that her adopted children would be taken away from her. There was no legal clarification of circumstances of the congress holding. There was a campaign of intimidation, which aim was not to registers the Belarusian Christian Democracy party,” Alyaksei Shein said.