A/HRC/38/51 media outlets: the Sovetskaya Belorussiya/Belarus Segodnya newspaper, the national television and radio broadcasting company and the Stolichnoe Televidenie television channel, which is now headed by the former First Deputy Minister for Information. In a similar attempt to control public opinion prior to the poll, a candidate of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party was excluded from standing for office for having distributed material during a gathering in the context of the campaign. 15 B. Freedom of association 45. The authorities of Belarus consider that the exercise of the freedom of association constitutes a potential threat to the “stability” of the country and have, therefore, created a politically guided bureaucratic system to register any entity. The right to create associations is recognized under article 36 of the Constitution. The establishment and activities of civil society associations are, however, restricted by the provisions of article 7 of the Civil Society Associations Act, on the grounds of protecting the State against propaganda inciting war or extremism and against the activities of unregistered civil society associations. By arbitrarily equating the activities of unregistered non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with propaganda inciting war and extremism, the Ministry of Justice can severely restrict the actual exercise of the freedom of association. 46. The Special Rapporteur and other mechanisms have repeatedly identified legal restrictions and State practices that are contrary to the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights pertaining to the freedom of association. In particular, the registration process is so cumbersome that it discourages NGOs from resubmitting their applications, giving rise to a worrisome trend. While the number of registered associations is allegedly on the rise (see CCPR/C/BLR/5, p. 362), the Special Rapporteur is not aware of any new registrations of human rights-related organizations or political parties. 47. The fate of unregistered organizations (the number of which is falling only because they give up attempts to register due to the hostile process involved) has long been a subject of human rights recommendations. Under article 193-1 of the Criminal Code, any activity undertaken by or in connection with an unregistered entity is punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment. The mere presence of that provision in the Criminal Code, which, according to the Government has not been used for many years (ibid, para. 369), deters attempts to conduct unauthorized activities. De jure criminalization may be arbitrarily turned into de facto criminalization at any time. 48. The Belarusian Christian Democracy party submitted its seventh application for registration to the Ministry of Justice on 22 January 2018, and on 6 April was again refused registration, based, as usual, on shortcomings relating to the registration data. The party filed a complaint with the Supreme Court on 27 April. 16 The Special Rapporteur is concerned about allegations of threats, made since February 2018, against local members of the party to force them withdraw their names from the application.17 49. On 11 October 2017, the Social Christian Movement was refused registration for the second time, again over issues regarding the application that could have easily been resolved. C. Freedom of peaceful assembly 50. With the severe handling of the March 2017 demonstrations, the authorities renewed their violent repression of peaceful public gatherings. Such an approach was again used, to 15 16 17 8 See https://belapan.by/archive/2018/02/13/942571/ (in Russian). See http://bchd.info/14065-ministerstva-yustycyi-belarusi-admovila-u-registracyi-bhd.html (in Belarusian). See http://spring96.org/en/news/89314.