17 October 2002
Brest city authorities ban Social Democrats from demonstrating against hospital closure
The Brest city government has banned the local branches of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Narodnaya Hramada" and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee from demonstrating against the defense ministry's decision to close down the region's only hospital for military
servicemen and army veterans.
The two organizations planned to stage a protest in front of the hospital, but the city authorities have replied that Brest's only legitimate venue of demonstrations is the Stroitel stadium.
Igor Maslovsky, chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee's Brest regional branch, told BelaPAN on Wednesday that he had expected the application to be turned down, but the authorities had breached the deadline for reply.
Mr. Maslovsky expressed the intention to file another request, this time signed by individual residents. "If the demonstration is banned this time too, we will go to court," he said. "In our practice, there have been cases of a court declaring the city government's decision illegal,"
he added.
Meanwhile, the two organizations are collecting signatures to a petition titled, "Do not Let Veterans Be Mistreated." To justify its decision to close the hospital in Brest, the defense ministry says that it does not have enough funds to serve 4,000 inpatients and some 30,000 outpatients annually.
The hospital in Belarus' south-eastern regional capital has 17,000 registered patients who are retired servicemen and around 1,600 World War II veterans.
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news291.html