Authorities to eliminate independent media

In case the law on media is adopted as it is currently drafted, independent media will get irreparable blow, which will make it difficult for them to survive and lead to eliminating of independent media in the country. Lawyers from the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) have come to this conclusion, having analysed the draft law on media, introduced for the first reading in the lower chamber of the Belarusian “parliament.”

The BAJ lawyers had an opportunity to learn the Draft Law on Media and have prepared an expert evaluation of the draft document. The BAJ press service offers the comments of experts from the BAJ Center for Legal Protection of the Media, former judge of the Constitutional Court Mikhail Pastukhou lawyer Yury Taparashau on some provisions of the law.

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New Law on “Mass Media” can considerably harden conditions for independent mass media activities

Expert evaluation of the draft law “On Mass Media”

In this case we are not dealing with amendments to the Law on Press, but with a principally new law regulating work of mass media. In general the structure of the current law in force is preserved, but this draft law brings considerable innovations to the legal regulation of mass media activities. In case of adoption of the draft law it could become disastrous for development of independent journalism in the Republic of Belarus.

The first and the most important novelty is legal treatment of the World Wide Web as a mass media source. Its regulation is to be carried out not only on the level of the law, but by by-laws as well.

The law includes Article 8 “Financing of mass media”. In line with that, some mass media can receive financing from the state and regional budgets, and from other sources as well, while others are prohibited to receive money or other assets from foreign legal entities and anonymous sources.

The draft law preserves the administrative procedure of declarative and licensing registration of mass media (Art. 11-13). It is fully applied to online mass media with an addition which is to de defined by the Government. The only positive aspect in the procedure of registration of the mass media is an absence of mentioning a notorious approval on a mass medium’s facility location by local authorities.

It should be kept in mind that the draft law makes the order of re-registration of mass media harsher. In particular, if a newspaper or a magazine hadn’t been released for more than 6 months (and not a year, as it is stated by the law now), re-registration is compulsory. There are also other grounds for re-registration of mass media (Art. 14).

Article 17 of the draft law provides that distribution of mass media would be allowed only for legal entities which have functions of editorial offices, or basing on the agreement concluded by them with press retailers. It is also noted that the policy of online media distribution is to be regulated by governmental acts.

One more novelty of the draft law is establishment of the Public Coordinating committee in the sphere of mass media (Art. 28). Its makeup and the order of its work are to be defined by the Information Ministry.

The institute of accreditation will be changed considerably. Article 1 of the draft law views accreditation as “offering a journalist a right to cover events organized by state bodies”.

Article 35 of the draft law defines the rights of the accreditation. Part two states that a journalist’s accreditation procedure is established by state bodies. That is, not a law, but an official is to decide to whom an accreditation will be granted, and who will be denied it. Part 4 of this article includes a categorical instruction that professional activities of journalists of foreign media at the territory of Belarus without accreditation are prohibited.

Article 36 of the draft law maintains the right of citizens, including journalists, to receive, store and disseminate information. But the second part of the Article states that state institutions “can give mass media information about their activities by holding press-conferences, sending informational materials and statistics data and in other ways”.

To our mind, this provision contradicts the Constitution (Art. 34) and Law on Press (Art. 32) which say not about a possibility (can provide information), but about an obligation to provide information about activities of state bodies to all citizens.

Article 37 on “Restricted Information” could be called one of the scandalous articles of the draft law. It contains a list of such information, which is finished by a reference to other kinds of information which could be envisaged by “legal acts of the Republic of Belarus”.

Besides, Article 38 of the draft law gives the list of information which dissemination in mass media is prohibited.

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We believe, if the law as it is currently drafted is adopted, media, especially independent ones, will be inflicted with another strike: conditions of work of independent media will considerable worsen and they will find themselves on the verge of survival.

Lawyers of the non-governmental organisation

Belarusian Association of Journalists

Mikhail Pastukhou and Yury Taparashau

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It should be reminded that the draft law on media was introduced to the “parliament” on 10 June. The next day it was put on the agenda of the current session for 17 June.

It is a notable fact that Yury Kulakouski, head of the “parliamentary” Commission for Human Rights, National relations and Media, said the draft law didn’t contain any conceptual amendments, and nothing is said about the Internet in it. “There’s only a reference this sphere is regulated by the current laws,” the “deputy” said.

But as it was found out later, the draft law defines media as “forms of periodical spreading of mass information by means of press, TV and radio broadcasting, global computer network Internet.” Thus, Internet media will be subject to registration on the basis of rules, applicable to other media. Council of Ministers is authorised to determine order and of media delivering via the Internet.

Belarusian high-rank officials have recently spoken for hardening of the law on media. In particular, Liliya Ananich, deputy minister of information, said Belarus had faced a problem of “stream of misinformation from foreign websites, but there are practices used in China, which blocked the access to the sites on its territory”. Aleh Pralyaskouski, director of the Information Analytical Center at the Presidential Administration, insists on necessary “increasing of responsibility for information on the Internet” and offers to place responsibility for spreading information via the Internet on a website’s administrator and an owner of Internet resource and a provider.