The founders of the public human rights association ‘Viasna’ have finally received an official letter from the Ministry of Justice ‘On refusal of state registration for the public association’. The Ministry lists five reasons why Viasna´s request to be registered has been refused. Viasna comments, giving their interpretation of why the organisation has been denied registration. (29-AUG-07)

On 23 July 2007, a group of human rights activists applied to the Ministry of Justice for registration of the independent, public human rights association Viasna. At a time when Belarusian authorities liquidate many NGOs and refuse to register others, a group of Belarusian human rights activists decided to unite their forces and try getting a state registration.

The Ministry of Justice gives five reasons not to register Viasna:
The first: ‘During the check-up of the information about the founders of the public association, it was found that some of the information that was specified in the list of founders was not true’. However, the letter does not give any details or examples of ‘untrue’ information.

The second: ‘… according to the information of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 20 out of 69 founders … were administratively punished for such violations as distribution of printed editions that were produced with violation of the established order…, violation of the order of organization or holding assemblies, meetings, street processions, etc., violation of the order of use of unregistered flags and streamers at mass actions, etc., petty hooliganism.’

The third: ‘… paragraph 2.1 of the presented charter determines only the main aim of the activity… of ‘Viasna’ which does not exclude the possibility for this association to have other aims of the activity that are not described in the charter…. Besides, the main aim of the public human rights association ‘Viasna’ is to defend human rights and freedoms on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.’ However, ‘as it is determined by part 1 of article 20 of the law of the Republic of Belarus on public associations, public associations, have the right to defend only the rights and legal interests of their members.’

The fourth: ‘The name of the public association that is in the process of establishment (Public human rights association ‘Viasna’) is essentially equal to the name of the Human Rights Center ‘Viasna’ that was liquidated before, which is inadmissible…’ According to the Ministry of Justice, ‘part 6 of article 12 of the law on public associations states that the name must differ from the names of other public associations that have state registration in the Republic of Belarus or have been liquidated by court decision…’

The fifth: ‘According to part 6 of article 13 of the above-mentioned law together with other documents, the Ministry of Justice must receive a bank document confirming the payment of the state fee. According to the existing instructions, the receipt must have the name of the association on it. ‘Among the documents that were submitted to the Ministry of Justice is a receipt about payment of the registration fee, not the state fee… The purpose of the payment is not specified on it.’ That’s why ‘this receipt cannot be considered as a bank document confirming the payment of the state fee.’

On the basis of the above-mentioned ruling of the Ministry of Justice on 23 August 2007, the public human rights association ‘Viasna’ was refused registration.

The real reason
In fact, there is only one real reason for the registration refusal. One of the co-founders of the public human rights association ‘Viasna’, vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) Ales Bialiatski, says: ‘A country that violates human rights and legal norms at mass scale seems to have no need for human rights activists’. Belarusian human rights activist will lodge a complaint against the Ministry of Justice´s response.