The way to block Internet in Belarus

USA Congress adopted unanimously “Act on Global Network Freedom.” Since that moment, the USA is to combat the attempts of certain governments to censor or limit access to the Internet in their countries as well as the regimes who threaten Internet users with legal persecution. The list of actual and possible enemies of the Internet includes: Cuba, Iran, Ethiopia, Laos, North Korea, China, Tunis, Vietnam, and a European country - Belarus.

In the near future the US Department of State is to establish a new institution for monitoring freedom of the global Internet. Its principal task will be to protect and promote freedom of digital information abroad, radio Svaboda reports.

US Department of State will get the support of US national investigation, Justice Ministry, General Prosecution and other structures of the US government.

World Network needs protection from regimes

This year Aliaksandar Lukashenka has repeatedly reminded his subordinates it was high time to bring order to the Internet, or “world dump,” as he put it. Certain cases of legal prosecution for information distribution are known.

Politician Andrei Klimau was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment for “appeals to throw down the regime or to change the constitutional system by the means of the mass media.” The legal actions were based on Klimau’s articles posted on the web-site of the United Civil Party.

The bill “On information, information distribution and information protection” will imply even more rigid sanctions towards the Belarusian Internet. Deputies of the “house of representatives” plan to consider the bill at the first reading during the autumn session.

According to Mikhail Pastukhou, head of the Center of Mass Media Legal Protection of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the document obviously leads to total control over Internet users, along with the intention to limit the access to the Internet for Belarusians. “The principal aspect we saw in the bill is a serious attempt of the state bodies to control information distribution via the Internet. The attempt to “arrange” the Internet in order to control the online resources is more alarming than the danger posed to the acting media (the press, radio and TV). Moreover, this is easy to implement in the country of a single provider (Beltelecom). And one more goal is to control Internet users, those who spread information in the Internet. That is why the international network must be protected from the state as long as possible,” Mikhail Pastukhou remakrs.

To block the Internet is as easy as a pie

With a determined decision to limit the access to the Internet, it will be as easy as a pie, programmer Vadzim Gerasimau, who is familiar with Internet resources filtration methods, is convinced. He believes that in Belarus there’ll be no need of Chinese technologies which are normally mentioned in the concerned bodies.

“As a matter of fact, it’s possible to limit the access to the Internet using the technologies available, without buying something extra. The Chinese are well-experienced: they have banned the Internet in their country, but they have nearly 2 bln people. It was more difficult for them because of the population. The Internet in China is available and widely-spread - the amounts are different. That is why it’s technically much easier for us. And our practice shows: during some political events, certain resources become unavailable, because providers deny access to them. And to limit the access means to make a list of the banned resources and the addresses of the sites - that’s it. Technically it’s really easy. Just one programmer is enough to block a definite sector of the network,” Vadzim Gerasimau believes.

By the way, according to the “Act on Global Network Freedom” adopted by the US Congress, “the companies dealing with Internet providing services cannot cooperate with the regimes of “repressing countries” for persecution of democratic activists.”