Uladzimir Katsora: Limitations for mass events are artificial by their nature

Uladzimir Katsora, a Movement for Freedom (the MFF) Homiel activist, sent the commentary to the UN Human Rights Committee to his complaint against the state’s violation of the right to distribute information and of the freedom of assembly.

 

As far as in early 2008, Katsora was arrested for seven days for the distribution of leaflets about the prescheduled meeting with Aliaksandr Milinkievich in Homiel. Katsora agreed neither with this sentence nor with the results of appeals to the national courts. So, he addressed to the said UN Committee. The Human Rights Committee accepted his message for consideration and offered the Belarusian state to give own explanations of this case. Having received the Belarusian government’s commentaries, the Human Rights Committee offered the author of this private complaint to react to them.

“It’s clear that all limitations in Belarus for mass events and for the distribution of information are artificial by their nature and aim primarily at suppression of the citizens’ initiative”, Katsora says. “Nothing in my case shows that the state – by arresting me – protected the state or civil security or the health and the rights of other people. Quite the opposite. In my commentary, I stress once more that the state violated both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and my own rights guarantied by this Covenant”.

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