Pastukhov: Bill on extremism should be abolished

Lawyer Mikhail Pastukhov who heads the Center for Media Legal Defence at the Belarusian Association of Journalists was surprised that a Belarus court threw out the case against newspaper Svaboda that had been described as an extremist outlet by a district court. The book titled "Human Rights Violations in Belarus-2004", also a case of extremism, was ignored by the authorities, too.
According to Pastukhov, this decision does not match the tendencies observed in Belarus over the past 14 years. He suggests as follows:

"It could be linked with the policy of playing games with the West. Perhaps, this is a sign of liberalization that was numerously declared by the head of the state".

Pastukhov does not rule out that the authorities in Belarus do not want to get under criticism of European human rights organizations. At the same time, the prominent lawyer hopes that these are not one-off decisions but a growing tendency. He says the next step should be to abolish the Extremism Protection Bill.

Pastukhov: "Generally speaking, the 2007 Law on Extremism Prevention confronts the Constitution, because it restricts greatly the freedom of opinion and the dissemination of information".

Mikhail Pastukhov also notes that no country in Europe has a legal provision that deals with combatting the extremist literature.