Any dissenting website at Belarus regime gunpoint: even anonymisers may be blocked


The Belarusian Ministry of Communications has gained the right to block access to proxy servers and software that enable anonymous communication. The Operational ad Analytical Centre issued the appropriate act on February, 19.

The act envisages access restriction if:

  • the Information Ministry has issued two or more written warnings to a website;
  • a website contains information on illegal drug trade or other information prohibited for distribution;
  • a website’s owner failed to meet a state body’s demand to redress violations of the law on mass media.

The Information Ministry authorises the State Telecommunication Inspectorate to draw ‘a blacklist’ of banned websites, and only state agencies and Internet providers will have access to it. Any citizen of Belarus may come up with an offer to put any website on the list.

If the State Telecommunication inspectorate detects any means of access to resources on the list their identificators will be blackbooked as well.

According to the new act, not only anonymisers and Tor may be blocked in Belarus; browsers Opera and Yandex that enable a user to get on any Internet resource are also menaced.

The act keeps pace with the initiative of the Belarusian MPs. In 2014 the anti-drug decree giving a way to block suspicious Internet resources was signed. Moreover, the law on mass media provided the procedure of blocking media outlets and equated any website to a media organisation.

According to independent experst and journalists, the amendments to the law on mass media adopted by the Belarusian rubber-stamping parliament on the quiet, tighten state control over informational sphere in Belarus (primarily over the Internet) and restrict citizens’ right to free expression and the right to gather and disseminate information, guaranteed by the Constitution.

www.belsat.eu/en, following Nasha Niva

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