The organizing committee for the Chornobyl Shlyakh (Chornobyl Way) demonstration marking the anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster in Minsk on April 26 has decided not to hold a traditional procession but gather for a rally at the Peoples' Friendship Park in central Minsk.
"The rally at the Peoples’ Friendship Park will start at 6:00 p.m. All those wishing can also go to the Chornobyl Chapel to lay flowers. But no common procession to the chapel is planned," Yury Khodyko, the head of the Chornobyl Way organizing committee, told journalists.
The Minsk authorities earlier denied the applicants a procession and a rally near the Chornobyl Chapel on Karastoyanova Street.
"It is a fact that the Minsk City Executive Committee has violated our constitutional rights by changing the form of this event, which in fact bans our procession. But, thank God, it has allowed a rally. Only a mass rally will be corresponding to the event that we are going to mark – the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl tragedy," Khodyko said.
"We will do all we can so that the police behave decently, not interfere, and not take away flags or banners," he said.
"The Chornobyl Way organizers will make efforts to return to a procession as a traditional form of the event," he said.
"But what counts most now is to gather as many people as possible and overcome the fear that has been produced by that brutal reprisal of December 19," Khodyko said.
Former presidential candidate Vitaly Rymashevsky said, "We cannot say that this [a rally in the park] is a desirable option, but this is an acceptable compromise in the current situation."
"It would be wrong to provoke [the authorities] in the current conditions, especially following the tragic events in the subway. It is clear that the Belarusian authorities and the security institutions will take advantage of this incident in order to put more pressure and minimize all the possible manifestations of human rights and freedoms in Belarus, including the right to freely hold processions," Rymashevsky said.
