Media freedom in Belarusian style: Information Ministry empowered to block websites
Today the Belarusian Ministry of Information has gained the right to decide what can and cannot be published on websites. The fact that the law on media has been amended on the Q.T. may be caused by the forthcoming presidential elections.
From 2015 on the Ministry of Information will be empowered to order which content should be removed even to the websites that are not registered as mass media. In case of disobedience a defiant website may be blocked.
Representatives of online media will stand an opportunity to be accredited, but even unregistered websites will fall within the provisions of the law.
According to media expert Paulyuk Bykouski, the amendments have both positive and negative effects.
“I consider introducing accreditation for online media a positive change. Earlier news websites did not have such opportunity. At the same time, now the Ministry of Information will be able to exert control over content of the websites available in the territory of Belarus. And this concerns not only domain zone .by. It is still not clear how it will be working,” he said.
The national register of distributors of printed media, cable and TV media and radio is to be drawn up.
Surreptitious amendments
The representatives of the Belarusian Association of journalists (BAJ) were not invited to the parliamentary discussing of amendments to the law on media. The BAJ was not even aware of it, Barys Haretski, a BAJ representative, says. At that, he notes that the BAJ has repeatedly addressed to the Ministry of Information and the presidential Administration calling to hold a public discussion of the law on media. While the Administration never turned down the proposal, the Ministry stated that any amendments to current legislation ‘made no sense’.
The amendments will toughen Belarusian journalists’ working conditions, Andrey Bastunets, BAJ lawyer, believes.
“The mere fact that the ministry of Information will make decisions on what can and cannot be published and that a website may be blocked after receiving two warnings makes this change more tough,” he says.
The lawyer puts rough-and-ready amendments to the president elections’ coming.
The draft law was approved in two hearings. If president Lukashenka signs it off, it will come into force on January, 1.
What news resources may be blocked?
Mikhas Yanchuk, a Belsat representative in Minsk, stresses that wherever an online news media is registered – in Belarus or abroad – the amendments will hit everyone posting news on the Internet.
“Up to this day the Internet has been the only free media space in Belarus. Now they are trying to prescribe more duties to websites but fail to give more rights. And if they start blocking not only websites of domain zone .by …does it mean that the Internet in general will be blocked in Belarus?”
