Valiantsin Stefanovich complains against Prosecutor General’s Office

A human rights defender demands to cancel the ruling of the Prosecutor General's Office on restricting access to the website of Viasna human rights centre.

Last week, Valiantsin Stefanovich, Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Center "Viasna", received a reply to his appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus, which concerned the introduction of the website spring96.org in the list of restricted access.

The paper noted, “The human rights organization “Viasna” is not registered by the Ministry of Justice as a public association, political party or entity of other organizational and legal forms... Due to the fact that for a long time the internet resource www.spring96.org has posted information that promotes acts prohibited by law, the Prosecutor General's Office in August 2011 issued a decision on the inclusion of an identifier for this online resource in the list of restricted access resources, which was forwarded to “BelGIE” for implementation.”

Valiantsin Stefanovich in a complaint filed in the Tsentralny District Court of Minsk says that he is the author and the reader of materials posted on the website, and considers the Prosecutor General’s decision to restrict access to the Internet resource as a manifestation of censorship and urges the court to recognize the decision illegal and oblige the law enforcement authority to correct the violation.

“All the reasons for restriction of my rights to freedom of expression, free search and dissemination of information mentioned in the response from the Prosecutor General’s Office are not associated with the permissible limitations (to respect of the rights or reputations of others, to protect public safety, order, health or morals) of those rights specified in the relevant articles of the Constitution and the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” said the human rights defender.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders condemned restrictions on access to the website of the Human Rights Center "Viasna".