What awaits Belarusian Internet?

Recently Information Minister Uladzimir Rusakevich stated that the Law on Internet is to be adopted in Belarus definitely.

As said by him, a special inter-agency group started to study experience of other countries on this subject. Meanwhile “deputies” of the so-called “chamber of representatives” do not know anything about the draft law.

Statements that control is needed for the Belarusian segment of the Internet are heard regularly. Why Internet is haunting the state officials? Radio Svaboda has decided to explore the issue.

Some experts say that the number of people using Internet in Belarus is growing rapidly. According to the latest report of the UN, more than 50% of Belarusians use Internet. As the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Salidarnasts Alyaksandr Starykevich believes, “Internet is the only branch where independent media have a discernible advantage over the state propaganda. That is why this issue really worries the regime”.

Information Ministry does not comment the statement of Uladzimir Starikevich. This statement of the official was a novelty fro the chairman of the human rights and mass media commission of the “chamber of representatives” Yury Kulakouski. To the request to comment the initiative of Rusakevich he answered that there is no such draft law offered for consideration of the “parliament”.

Commenting on the statement of information minister on necessity of the law on Internet, a deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Andrei Bastunets expressed an idea that after adoption of this draft law there would be an opportunity to use sanctions against editorial offices, for instance, to stop activities of Internet publications.

Mr. Bastunets does not exclude even “pinpoint persecution” of journalists who are to work in other domain zones. The formal cause for that could be “Regulation on accrediting foreign correspondents”.

Some observers say that Belarus is getting more and more similar to China which is considered one of the harshest censors of the web.

By the way, our neighbour Russia discusses the idea to amend use of legal norms which could regulate use of common legal norms which already exist, to Internet surroundings.

As an Internet publication Gazeta.ru was told by head of the blog service of the Sup Fabrik company, which runs the Russian segment of LiveJournal: “Special laws on Internet exist only in authoritarian countries, for instance in China”.