Belarus online rules criticised

MEDIA WATCHDOGS have condemned moves by Belarus’s autocratic president Alexander Lukashenko to further tighten state control over public access to the internet.

New rules introduced this month allow Belarusian authorities to fine internet cafes that fail to record the personal details of web users, and the sites they visit, and which permit access to websites named on a government blacklist.

The list is secret, but is believed to include sites run by Belarus’s beleaguered opposition movement which are critical of Mr Lukashenko’s repressive 18-year rule.

“This reinforcement of censorship is a survival reflex on the part of a government weakened by the unrest that followed President Lukashenko’s disputed re-election in December 2010,” Reporters Without Borders said.

Opposition websites have come under regular cyber attack since Belarusians used social networks to co-ordinate protests against Mr Lukashenko’s allegedly fraudulent re-election.

Some 700 people were arrested during rallies immediately after the ballot, including several politicians who ran against Mr Lukashenko. Two of them are still in jail, and other leading activists have since fled Belarus.

Mr Lukashenko (57) blamed foreign governments and media for fuelling protests. He vowed to monitor opposition social networks and “hit them so hard they won’t even have time to escape across the border. Now they are using slightly new methods to try and shake up Belarus including . . . trash called the internet,” he complained at the time.

The new measures stiffen existing internet legislation and force businesses located in Belarus to register their internet services there and host their websites on the country’s servers.

This is seen as a bid to boost government revenue and cut down on tax evasion by online retailers, as Mr Lukashenko struggles to haul Belarus out of its worst economic crisis in 20 years.

The plight of Belarusian media is likely to be discussed when Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore visits the Vienna headquarters of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe on Thursday. Ireland has made media freedom a priority of its current year as chairman of the 56-nation body.