A/HRC/29/43 permission- rather than notification-based, putting all decisions at the discretion of the authorities. The process of applying for registration is also highly obstructive, involving the requirement to meet a number of complicated and cumbersome administrative requirements, lengthy procedures, lack of transparency, and the selective application of laws and regulations. A common feature of these time-consuming and costly procedures is that their unnecessarily strict requirements allow for a discriminatory refusal of registration by the authorities. Civil society groups are repeatedly and arbitrarily denied registration on various grounds, many of which not even mentioned in the relevant law or regulations. 95. As an illustrative example, in September and November 2014, the Department of Justice of the Mahiliou Regional Executive Committee repeatedly applied to the Regional Court for a suspension of the activities of the Mahiliou Human Rights Centre, which has been engaged in human rights activities for 17 years. The reasons given were “failure to provide documents required for the registration of changes regarding the legal address”, and that their actual office space was 0.3 m2 less than specified in the official documents. On 17 March 2015, the court resumed the consideration of the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice to close down the organization, and dismissed the case only after a new landlord gave guarantees that he would provide a legal address.64 96. Participation in the activities of unregistered associations is criminalized by law, under which persons involved in unregistered groups may be sentenced to up to two years of imprisonment. In addition, unregistered non-governmental organizations are forbidden from receive funding. The described cumulatively forbidding set of regulations is often used for targeted harassment and persecution of human rights activists. In particular, laws on taxation in relation to funding are used to bring criminal charges, as was the case with Ales Bialiatski, who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for administering foreign funding for Viasna. 97. Administrative harassment, warnings and threats are routinely used to intimidate human rights defenders with the aim to prevent them from carrying out their activities. 98. The Special Rapporteur is particularly concerned about the recent expulsion of the Chairperson of the Centre for Legal Transformation (LawTrend), Elena Tonkacheva, from Belarus on 21 February 2015, and the ban on her re-entry to the country for three years. A deportation order was issued against the human rights defender following the cancellation of her residence permit on 30 October 2014 – an administrative decision based on alleged speed limit violations reported while she was driving her car (see A/HRC/28/63/Add.1, para. 383).65 99. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that Viasna, one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in the country, has consistently been denied registration since 2003. 100. The Special Rapporteur also notes the death threats received by Leanid Sudalenka, a human rights defender in Gomel. 66 The Special Rapporteur calls upon the authorities in Belarus to conduct a full investigation into these death threats and to afford Mr. Sudalenka protection as stipulated by the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. 64 65 66 Viasna, “Court in Mahiliou dismisses suit to close human rights NGO”, 17 March 2015. See also OHCHR, “Elena Tonkacheva’s deportation shows ‘pervasive harassment of rights defenders in Belarus’”, 6 March 2015. Front Line Defenders, “Belarus – Refusal to investigate death threats against human rights defender Mr Leanid Sudalenka and his family”, press release, 9 March 2015. 17