BAJ set to appeal justice ministry’s warning used as reason for its possible closure

“We strong­ly dis­agree with the jus­tice ministry’s accu­sa­tions and will appeal this warn­ing,” the BAJ said in a state­ment on Thurs­day.

The BAJ not­ed that its office in Min­sk had been sealed off for a month after a search on Feb­ru­ary 16, and that its rep­re­sen­ta­tives had been sum­moned for ques­tion­ing by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee sev­er­al times.   

“On June 21, it turned out that the activ­i­ties of the BAJ and oth­er NGOs had been put under the jus­tice ministry’s scruti­ny,” the BAJ said. “Tak­en togeth­er, all these events can be viewed as a pur­pose­ful repres­sive per­se­cu­tion of the orga­ni­za­tion and the cre­ation of con­di­tions imped­ing its activ­i­ties.”

The BAJ point­ed out that its Min­sk office had been sealed off again after a raid on July 14.

“The orga­ni­za­tion has no access to its statu­to­ry doc­u­ments, seal and lease agree­ments men­tioned in the warn­ing. We do not even know what things were seized from the BAJ’s office,” the state­ment said.

On July 21, the jus­tice min­istry filed a law­suit seek­ing the clo­sure of the BAJ over its alleged fail­ure to stop vio­la­tions of reg­u­la­tions.

When reached by Bela­PAN, BAJ Deputy Chair­per­son Barys Harec­ki said that the orga­ni­za­tion intend­ed to fight for its legal sta­tus “till the end.”

He said that the jus­tice min­istry had not offi­cial­ly informed the BAJ about its inten­tion to close the orga­ni­za­tion. He also said that they could not fix the prob­lems raised in the ministry’s warn­ing because their Min­sk office was still sealed off and they had no access to their papers. He point­ed out that they had told the jus­tice min­istry about their sit­u­a­tion.

Even if the BAJ los­es its legal sta­tus, it will con­tin­ue its activ­i­ties aimed at “defend­ing itself and its col­leagues,” Mr. Harec­ki stressed.

“The BAJ is not only a legal address and a reg­is­tra­tion license but 25 years of suc­cess­ful work that keeps going. This is more than 1,300 media peo­ple who remain mem­bers of the BAJ despite pres­sure. We are con­fi­dent that our com­mu­ni­ty will not dis­ap­pear,” he said.

On July 15, the BAJ received a let­ter from the jus­tice min­istry say­ing that a warn­ing had been issued to the orga­ni­za­tion.

The min­istry explained that the BAJ had failed to sub­mit cer­tain doc­u­ments. In addi­tion, there were issues with lease agree­ments for some of the BAJ’s offices in the provinces.

The min­istry instruct­ed the BAJ to take steps to resolve the issues and noti­fy it on July 16 at the lat­est.

“It is note­wor­thy that the warn­ing was issued by Deputy [Jus­tice] Min­is­ter Siarhiej Kali­noŭs­ki on July 8 and the stamp on the let­ter says that it was sent on July 9 but [postal oper­a­tor] Belpošta’s track­ing sys­tem shows that the let­ter was received from the sender on July 13, one day before an attack on the organization’s office,” the BAJ said at the time.

On July 14, law enforce­ment offi­cers con­duct­ed a search at the BAJ’s office in Min­sk. The prop­er­ty was sealed off after the search.