Another Homel "Parasite" Complaint Registered In UN

Belarusians continue to defend their right to peaceful protest at the international level.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) accepted the complaint of another Homel activist of the spring protests, member of the Belarusian Popular Front Valer Rapnin. As Homel Spring reports, the Belarusian government will now have to find an answer to the question of why the authorities arrest the opponents and impose them fines, which are not proportionate to the average wage in the country, for participating in peaceful protests against the decree on "parasites".

In the complaint registered under No. 3084/2017, the activist reports that on March 25, on Freedom Day, along with others (about five hundred people), he took part in a rally sanctioned by the authorities, which took place at an open area near the cultural center Vipra in Homel. He notes that during the peaceful assembly, the participants protested against the presidential decree No. 3 "On Prevention Of Social Dependency", when the people started to disperse, the police arrested the most active participants.

"No one has any doubts that the protest rally was held in a peaceful way. Nevertheless, I, as well as other active participants, was arrested by the police and accused of violating the established procedure for holding mass events. I served my 5-day arrest in a detention center from March 25 to 30," – Valer Rapnin writes.

Human rights activist Leanid Sudalenka stresses that Homel activists have spent more than 60 days at detention centers for their participation in spring protests and paid large administrative fines. Almost all of them have used the right to file individual complaints with the UN Committee on Human Rights. He stresses that this is the second so-called "parasitic" complaint, accepted for consideration at the international level. In total, 18 complaints have been filed from Homel region.

We remind that on March 27, Alena Shain, a judge of the Savietski district court of Homel, locked Valer Rapnin up for 5 days. According to the judge, the street march along Savietskaya street to Yubileinaya street to get to the venue of the rally, during which the oppositionist was carrying a white-red-white flag, was illegal. Regional judge Mikalai Bakunou came to similar conclusions, having considered Valer Rapnin’s cassational appeal, in fact leaving the prisoner's claims about violation of his rights to express opinions and peaceful assembly without consideration.