Salihorsk ideologists don't fulfil prosecutor's orders

The Salihorsk district executive committee refuses to make public the decision that banned a picket on the Human Rights Day on December 10.

Ideologists say local human rights defenders should look for the decision in the state archive in Slutsk despite orders from a prosecutor's office, Viasna human rights centre reports.

Prosecutor of the Salihorsk district Aleh Audzei ordered chairman of the Salihorsk district executive committee Aliaksandr Rymasheuski in late December to solve the issue of giving local representative of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Leanid Markhotka a copy of the committee's decision No 700 “On measures on preventing accidents and compliance with law during mass events” of 07.10.2014. The prosecutor recommended the district authorities to publish the decision on the committee's official website.

Larysa Zhukava, the head of the ideological department of the Salihorsk district executive committee, issued an official reply to the prosecutor's request a week ago. She refused to give a copy of the mysterious decision again. The official's only reaction to the letter from the prosecutor's office was the proposal to the BHC representative to look for the required document in the Slutsk state archive.

Larysa Zhukava explains the absence of the decision “On measures on preventing accidents and compliance with law during mass events” on the committee's website with Lukashenka's decree No 3 “On certain issues of publication and entry into force of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus” of 24.02.2014. The official didn't explain in her official reply how exactly the decree prohibits publishing the public decision on the website.

Leanid Markhotka says ironically that the stance of the Salihorsk officials can be called sabotage. The human rights defender thinks that non-transparency of state bodies and their unwillingness to react properly to citizen's needs result in a number of negative consequences both in political and economic spheres.