There were 14 people in attendance from all parts of the Brest region in south-west of Belarus. The founding congress strictly followed all necessary procedural steps.
The event attracted considerable attention by the fact that all people present, who defended citizen‘s rights in the past and are willing to fight violations in the future, gathered in Brest for the founding congress not for a first time. Human rights defenders Uladzimir Vialichkin of Brest and Siarhej Housha of Baranavičy shared their concerns:
“We are at our fifth founding congress. We hope that this is the very last one.”
“Yet again we meet in Brest, I’m not sure how many time we’ve done it, in an attempt to register Brest Viasna, well I sure hope this is the last time we meet. If we are given this one last chance we are certainly going to use it. We shall see how prepared the authorities are and whether they will be able to register us.”
These 14 individuals did not idle to gather in Brest for the fifth time as they hoped that their case would be resolved positively. Uladzimir Malej believed that if they corrected a mistake done not due to their fault the previous time, there would be no grounds to reject the registration.
However, Yury Zhydovich, a Brest based human rights defender, and Ales Mekh of Kobryn were rather pessimistic about the prospect of registration. They were sure that they at least had to attempt, but with the current authorities it was futile.
All human rights defenders were certain that their citizens needed their expertise. Piotr Niestsiarovich of Brest said that the implementation of the not-so-bad Belarusian legislation could have been much better.
Brest Visna is a regional organization of Human Rights Centre Viasna, which has also been struggling to reregister since its forceful closure in 2003.
