Malady Front founder says that authorities will not allow the group to operate legally

• 8.10.2007, 18:12

Pavel Sevyarynets, a politician who was among the founders of Malady Front, said that the Belarusian authorities would not allow the opposition youth group to operate legally.

The Supreme Court upheld the justice ministry’s registration denial to Malady Front on October 8.

“Denying registration to a non-governmental organization on the grounds that its founders were prosecuted for acting on behalf of an unregistered organization in the past is absurd,” he said in an interview with BelaPAN. “It’s absolutely clear after this decision that it is nothing but politically motivated.”

“We repeatedly attempted to have the organization registered in 2000 and 2001, when I was the leader of Malady Front. I even would not be able to say how many agencies we applied to and how many times we altered the documents. The reply was the same – [registration] denial. But we applied for registration again and again only to show to the public that there was no law as such in Belarus,” Mr. Sevyarynets said.

The politician recommended that the youth group should take the case to international organizations. “This will allow young lawyers to get some invaluable experience of writing such complaints. This will give additional experience for the possible registration of the organization in the neighboring countries: Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. And I believe that they should continue efforts to have the organization registered in Belarus. The political situation may change and the organization may be registered in the event of another episode of bargaining with Europe,” he said.

Nine Malady Front activists were found guilty of acting on behalf of an unregistered organization under Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code within a year. Zmitser Dashkevich was the only one to get a prison sentence, while the rest got away with fines and warnings.