Another “supervisor” of Belarusian Internet appointed

BelGIE, a state inspection for telecommunication control, will soon give final explanations on what regulation of the Internet under decree #60 will mean for Belarusians.

The Ministry of Communication of Belarus issued an instruction #4 on March 19 that empowers the company to provide state registration and gathering data on fiber-optic lines belonging to all economic entities of all forms of ownership on the right of ownership, economic jurisdiction or operational management, Agency of Financial News reports.

BelGIE, a self-financing organization (unlike the Ministry of Communication, which is financed from the stat budget), performs control and supervision functions. Most people living in Belarus directly or indirectly know this “careful” company, to which they have to pay for registration of fax machines, analog and digital modems, mobile communication devices, etc.

As AFN thinks, BelGIE won’t do anything for free, so registration and collecting data will be paid for. In most case, it will be an end-consumer who will have to pay for the expenses.

The scandalous decree on national segment of the Internet has been signed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The decree is to come into effect on July 1. The text of the draft decree appeared on the Internet last December. It brought on criticism by the Belarusian media community and international human rights organizations, including OSCE. Independent experts have no doubts that Lukashenka’s decree is primarily aimed at blocking oppositional websites during election campaign.

One of many item of the decree that cause concern reads: “Upon the request of a user, providers of Internet services effect services limiting access to information which is aimed at extremist activities”. A known fact, the Belarusian authorities often accuse the opposition of “extremism”.