Now it’s official: Hanging out white-red-white flags considered as holding mass events
Those Belarusian citizens who hang out ‘unregistered symbols’ even on their own windows or balconies may be penalised under administrative law, state-run news agency BelTA reports.
According to the Minsk city police department, showing ‘unregistered symbols’ is a violation of Art. 10 of the law ‘On Mass Events’; law enforcers consider it as holding a mass event (picketing).
“In case of the lack of a corresponding permit from Minsk City Executive Committee, in accordance with Article 23.34-1 of the Code of Administrative Offences, administrative liability [for the violation] is provided. It is punishable by a fine of up to 30 basic units or administrative arrest,” police officials told the agency.
To date, the Minsk police have drawn up more than 20 protocols for hanging out white-red-white flags and sent them to court.
As reported earlier, a Vitsebsk court imposed a fine of 675 rubles on Tatsyana Sevyarynets, a local activist and mother of political prisoner Pavel Sevyarynets for ‘participating in an ‘unauthorised mass event’ on August, 30. However, the woman was staying at home at that moment: Tatsyana and her husband Kanstantsin just went out into the balcony of their flat on the sixth floor and waved a white-red-white flag, greeting the participants in Sunday’s solidarity march.
