The popular news website Charter’97 is no longer available for users from Belarus.
The website fails to load, or a user sees window saying that the page is on the restricted access list.
A decision to restrict access to the news resource was made on the ground of Article 511 of the law ‘On Mass Media’, the Belarusian Ministry of Information reports. The article refers to the distribution of materials that are banned or restricted for distribution in accordance with the law or a court decision.
In addition, the ministry mentioned Article 38 which forbids media publications of information on the activities of unregistered organizations; promotion of drugs and psychotropics; propaganda of war and extremism; pornography; information that could harm the national interests of Belarus. The agency did not specify why Charter’97 had been banned.
“For 20 years the authorities have been fighting us – they blocked our website, arrested and killed our journalists. We will defend the website Charter’97 by all means, including with the help of the international community,” Charter’97 editors state.
