Zmitser Dashkevich: Actions of Belarusian authorities are absurd

A founding congress of the youth organization Young Front was held in the quarters of the BPF party in Minsk on January 30.

The congress was attended by delegates from all Belarusian regions. As BelaPAN reports, Young Front head Zmitser Dashkevich reminded that organizers had applied for premises for carrying out a congress to more than a dozen of public institutions.

“All instructions rejected to give us premises. The reasons were traditional: either premises were occupied, or they were under repair. The Minsk International Education Center refused renting premises as one of the founders, the Minsk city executive committee, hadn’t given its consent,” Dashkevich said.

Zmitser Dashkevich said he cherished no illusions regarding registration of the organization.

“In 2006 and 2007, we had a number of attempts to register the organization. So, the authorities cannot use their main argument – our unwillingness to register. I can’t but noticed that the authorities deny registration for the Young Front on far-fetched reasons. In case with the BCD, there are formal references to the law. But we do not have even this formality. For example, in 2007 we received an answer that there were too many people in the Young Front convicted for activity on behalf of unregistered organizations. We were convicted for activity on behalf of unregistered organization but were not allowed to register. So we try to register again. We are going to demonstrate this absurdity to the Belarusian society and international community,” Dashkevich said.

This will be the sixth attempt to register the Young Front in Belarus. The organization is officially registered in the Czech Republic as an international youth association.