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Tacciana Raviaka sues customs office for Bialatski’s book

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Tacciana Raviaka sues customs office for Bialatski’s book

Today at Ashmiany district court a proceeding will start at the lawsuit of a human rights activist Tacciana Raviaka.

During the previous proceeding on 29 January Tacciana Raviaka and her representative Paviel Sapelka studied the outcomes of the expertise, based on which Ales Bialatski’s book “Enlightened by Belarus” was ruled to be re-exported, Radio Svaboda reports.

The expertise was carried out by the same experts of the Chief Department for Ideology, Culture and Youth Affairs of Hrodna region executive committee, who found extremist the photo album Press-Photo 2012.

These are a lawyer Vadzim Khiluta and a historian Uladzimir Jahorychau.

“At hand I have the documents, based on which the experts made the conclusion that the book contained extremist materials. According to the documents, the experts avoided answering the question on the book’s harmful influence on economic and political interests of the population of the territory of the Customs Union. It is at all not clear why the book “Enlightened by Belarus” was included in the list of the forbidden publications”, - Tacciana Raviaka says.

In the time that has passed since the previous proceeding, the human rights activist together with lawyers finished a court appeal with the consideration of the drawbacks of the expertise’s outcomes. Also today at the court’s proceeding there will be witnesses Siarhiej Sys and Andrej Paluda present, who are going to testify that Tacciana Raviaka carried the books not for sale, but for spreading among Ales Bialatski’s friends and acquaintances.

“It is very important to us that these systematic violation of law on the part of Ashmiany customs office were stopped. Because they do not only relate Ales Bialatski’s book, but also to Press-Photo Belarus albums, they also relate to the closing of the Lohvinau publishing house. That is why our appeal on the case of Bialatski’s book is an attempt to stop systematic violations”, - the human rights activist claimed.

On 3 July customs officers confiscated from Tacciana Raviaka 40 issues of Ales Bialatski’s book “Enlightened by Belarus”, published in Lithuania. Ales Bialatski’s book carried the issues for Bialatski’s friends. The human rights activist demands that the court found illegal the action of Ashmiany customs office, which obliged her to place the 40 issues of Ales Bialatski’s book under the customs re-exports procedure before 21 January, and also stop the execution of such actions before the lawsuit is finished.

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