Belarusbank denied service in Belarusian to Baranavichy dweller

Syarei Housha advocates his right to use Belarusian language in bank sphere.

The human rights activist has received a letter from an open joint stock company “Savings bank Belarusbank”, branch #802, signed by its director A.F. Novitsky, where he writes that the bank had considered his appeal concerning payments and use of Belarusian for customer support, Viasna human rights center writes.

First of all the official told Syarhei Housha about the work of Belarusbank in detail. He described development and elaboration of the single payments and informational space for payments for services. And as for Belarusian language in customer service, Navitski explained in his answer that “being guided by the legal base of Belarus, rendering services to the population the bank has a right to use one of the state languages of Belarus, Russian or Belarusian.”

- However, Article 50 of the Constitution guarantees that every citizen has a right to use native language, and to choose a language to communicate. Everything looks differently in real life in our country. I cannot send or print out any bank paper in Belarusian, as bank employees complain they do not have Belarusian alphabet in their computers. I wrote about that to the board of the bank and hoped Belarusian letters would be installed, and I would be able to use native language without problems. But instead of concrete work aimed at expanding use of Belarusian in bank sphere, I has received a usual reply without substance, - the human rights activist Syarhei Housha informed.

The public activist is intends to continue his fight for his right of using mother tongue.