Human Rights Activists Demanded Law On Mass Events To Be Changed In Belarus

Human Rights Center Viasna urges the authorities to stop the persecution of citizens, exercising their right to assembly and expression of opinion.

This is said in the statement of the HRC Viasna.

“To bring citizens who participate in peaceful assemblies to administrative responsibility in the form of fines is a violation of their right to freedom of assembly and expression of opinion. The practice of the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations has repeatedly confirmed this upon individual applications of citizens of Belarus.

In some cases, the imposition of racking and obviously disproportionate fines entails the violation of other constitutional rights of the citizens, in particular the right to freedom of travel”, – the statement notes.

Human rights activists emphasized that the experience of the last gatherings demonstrated their absolutely peaceful nature. During those gatherings, participants and organizers did not violate the public order, did not commit any illegal actions that would pose a threat to national security, the rights or morals of other citizens.

“We focus attention on the fact that current legislation on public events makes it almost impossible to get a permission on holding mass events from the local executive authorities, it imposes material obligations on the organizers (holding the gathering, public order protection, health care and cleaning of the territory) and contains other restrictive and repressive rules.

We believe that in order to ensure the freedom of peaceful assembly, the law of the Republic of Belarus "On mass events" should be harmonized with international standards of human rights, including OSCE/ODIHR Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly. We are ready to provide public entities having the right of legislative initiative, our recommendations and suggestions," –human rights activists say.

The Human Rights Center Viasna urges the authorities to stop the persecution of citizens who exercise their right on peaceful assembly and expression of opinion.