Court ruled to ban Bialatski’s book

Court of Ashmiany district ruled to take the book’s print run abroad.

The book by a politically imprisoned human rights activist Ales Bialatski has been ruled to be banned in the territory of Belarus and to be taken abroad, human rights center Viasna reports.

On 11 February Ashmiany district court banned Ales Bialatski’s book “Enlightened by Belarus” from being imported in Belarus. A human rights activist Tacciana Raviaka was ordered to take the book’s print run abroad.

This court’s ruling was the result of the consideration of Tacciana Raviaka’s complaint about Ashmiany customs officers, who confiscated the book’s print run at crossing Belarus’ border.

On 3 July 2013 40 issues of the book were confiscated and a human rights activist Tacciana Raviaka was carrying them by a private car from Lithuania to Belarus.

After that the customs office’s administration assigned two expertises in order to find whether the book contained extremist or terroristic appeals, but for a number of reasons found both expertises invalid.

Despite that, today the judge made the decision to ban the book from being imported in Belarus and oblige Raviaka to take the book’s print run abroad. The human rights activist does not agree to such a decision and intends to appeal to Hrodna region court shortly.