Third refusal of the registration of the Belarusian Christian Democracy, despite of international pressure

Some time ago,I wrote here about the situation in Belarus concerning the Belarusian Christian Democracy and their attempts to legally register their party. Recently a new constituency congress was organized in order to try to register the party for the third time. However, on the same day that the EU Council of Foreign Ministers will discuss about the "Belarusian issue", from their press center I received the news that it is unlikely that the party will be officially registered this time

On October,24 expired the term allocated by the law for making decision on registration of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party,

It is worth mentioning that on September 12, 2010 the third Constituent Congress of the BCD was held and on September,19 the Belarusian Christian Democracy party applied for registration to the Ministry of Justice.

But with the looming prospect of the meeting of the Council of EU Foreign Ministers to be held today, on the 25th of October in Brussels, during which the "Belarusian issue" will be discussed - the Lukashenka’s regime illegally concealing the decision on registration of the BCD.

According to our information, the Ministry of Justice has prepared a statement of non-registration of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. To pave the way for this decision, over the past month the Belarusian regime put a lot of pressure on the BCD founders: people were threatened with dismissal from their jobs and expelling from universities, unless they did not desist from the party membership.

It was just recently that several European governments (Germany, Lithuania, Finland), which Christian Democrats are part of, and MEPs raised the issue of registration of the BCD to the Lukashenka’s regime. Worldwide human rights organizations also called on the Belarusian government officials to register the BCD. As well as the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite who posed the question of the BCD registration at a meeting with Lukashenka (whose answer was unintelligible).

The leadership of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party states that it will continue to operate despite the unlawful decisions of the Ministry of Justice. The BCD is now conducting an election campaign of Vital Rymasheuski, who is a candidate for the presidency.

(Source: Press centre of the Belarusian Christian Democracy)