Justice Ministry Issued Warning for Three Oppositional Parties :: Charter'97 :: News

Justice Ministry issued written warning for three political parties, the Party of Communists of Belarus (PCB), Belarusian Social Democratic party (Hramada) and the Belarusian party of women “Nadzeja”.

As the official site of the Justice Ministry of Belarus informs, warnings were issued on February 1. The justification for that was holding by these parties a founding congress of a political association “Union of Left parties” (ULP) in Chernihiv (Ukraine) on December 17, 2006. It was stated by the Justice Ministry in the warning that under the legislation in force, “activities of parties registered in Belarus could not apply to the territory outside Belarus. Political parties cannot organize or hold events at the territory of other states”.

As we have informed, the founding congress had been planned in Minsk, but organizers hadn’t managed to find premises for it, as they had been denied premises several times. As a result, it has been decided to hold the congress in Chernihiv.

The aim of forming the ULP was to unite three parties to realize aims of the democratic coalition. In Chernihiv the leader of the Party of Communists of Belarus Syarhei Kalyakin supposed in an interview to the BelaPAN that the new association would not be registered “for political reasons”. “In case the union would not be registered, we would find an organizational form for our cooperation to complete our tasks,” he told.

Founders of the ULP are set to challenge the official warning of Ministry of Justice in the Supreme Court.