On July 12, the Gomel Tsentralny District Court considered the complaint lodged by the Belarusian Radio and Electronic Workers' Union (REP) against city authorities in respect of refusal to sanction pickets on the International Children's Day – June 1. Despite complete absence of grounds as presented by the respondent, the court supported just the latter.

Let us remind you that on June 1 trade-union activists wanted to express their protest against cancellation by President Lukashenko in 2007 of privileges for pupils, students and children under three years and call the public to struggle for return of the privileges. In total, 34 applications were lodged in the regional capital asking to allow the action. The city authorities rejected all of them. That is why ten union activists went to court.

Leonid Sudalenko, legal inspector of the REP Trade Union for the Gomel Region, who presented the applicants' interests at trial, told the website praca-by.info that the activists not only challenged the decision of the Gomel City Executive Committee to ban the pickets, but also drew the court's attention to the lawfulness of appointing a single place in the city for holding mass actions. They also found the imposition on organizers of peaceful citizens' assemblies of the duties to conclude contracts with militia, and medical and sanitary services of the city to be a violation and presented their arguments to the court.

"We asked a question: how, for example, an unemployed person can enjoy his or her legitimate right to peaceful assembly and pay for the services of militia, medical and municipal services?" said Mr Sudalenko. "Irina Romanyuk, who represented the City Executive Committee, said that since you have no money, there's no reason to hold pickets."

She failed to reasonably answer another question asked by trade-union activists: "How is it possible to hold a mass action, for example, a demonstration, which, first of all, assumes a march of a group of people along the street, if the authorities had appointed only one place for this purpose in the city?"

In spite of absence of any convincing arguments presented by the respondent, the decision of the judge was just in favour of the latter.

According to Leonid Sudalenko, trade-union activists are confident of their rightness and are going to appeal against the decision of the district court of Gomel in higher instances.

"The numerous refusals of the City Executive Committee to sanction our pickets in Gomel are contradictory both to the Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Therefore, we plan to appeal against the decision of the district court in higher instances and if necessary – at the UN Human Rights Committee," said the trade-union lawyer.