Activists Continue Struggle With Authorities For Street Named After Slutsk Insurgents

Hundreds of people have signed the petition.

The district deputy council plans to hold repeated meeting of the Kamsamolskaya Street residents on the issue of re-naming the street into the Slutsk Insurgents’ Street, “Novy Chas” writes.

Chairman of the Slutsk district “council of deputies” Victar Razhanets has informed this.

The deputy council received the electronic collective appeal on the issue of re-naming the Kamsamolskaya Street into the Slutsk Insurgents’ Street. This time, 658 people signed it. This appeal has become the reason for holding the repeated session of the district deputy council.

Important to note, on November 2 2016, activists Vital Amialkovich and Zinaida Tsimoshak submitted 550 “paper” signatures of citizens for the re-naming the Kamsamolskaya Street into the Slutsk Insurgents’ Street to commemorate the Slutsk fighters for the country’s independence in 1920, to the district executive committee, which organized conducting of a meeting of citizens living in Kamsamolskaya Street later on. According to the record of the meeting, the residents voted against such re-naming.

This news caused interest among non-indifferent citizens as the Slutsk uprising remains a distinctive event in the history of Belarus, and all nationally conscious citizens celebrate its anniversary every year. An electronic petition in support of the Slutsk Insurgents’ Street was launched at zvarot.by website.

Author of the petition Uladzimir Makhnach, who was the first to sign it, received the reply inked by Chairman of the Slutsk district “council of deputies” Victar Razhanets on February 16. In the document, Victar Razhanets informed that the date and place of the meeting would be announced in the local media and forwarded to Uladzimir Makhnach as the first signor of the electronic petition, so that he could pass it to all the rest.

In turn, Vital Amialkovich has informed that several days ago he submitted a complaint at violation of the legislation on conducting local meetings by the Slutsk district executive committee during organization of the citizens’ meeting on the issue of re-naming the street back in November 2016, to the Slutsk district court.

“During organization and holding the meeting, severe violations of Article 17 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus “On Republican and Local Meetings” were committed. The Constitution provides for distribution of the information about the meeting in the media or in other ways with the obligatory indication of the place, date and time, with the formulation of questions for discussion and contact information of the officials. In addition, the information should appear within the last 7 days before the meeting, — the civil activist has told about the violation of the legislation. “Also, the record of the meeting does not include the names and addresses of the street residents who participated in the meeting. Therefore, it remains unknown who those 62 people were and why the whole meeting was held in such secrecy. There have been other violations as well and I pointed them out for the court’s attention.”

Vital Amialkovich is hoping that the district deputy council will hold the new meeting of the residents in compliance with the current legislation and will not repeat the mistakes of the board of the Slutsk district executive committee, will not violate the legal rights and interests of the citizens, and will show patriotism and national awareness during the discussion of such important issue.