Ministry of Information Entitled with More Authority :: Charter'97 :: News

All Belarusian TV and radio stations will have to pass another re-registration by June 1. The frequencies will be distributed and licenses will be issued by the Ministry of information, headed by Podgainy, rather than the Ministry of communications, as was the case previously. The concomitant ruling of the Council of Ministers was personally signed by Premier Gennady Novitsky on December 30, 2002. The lawyers of the Belarusian Association of journalists fear that the decision will significantly contract the number of non-state electronic media.

The head of the Center for legal assistance of media professor Mikhail Pastukhov believes that the passage of this ruling will entail serious consequences for the commercial TV and radio stations, which operate today all across Belarus. It sounds especially suspicious that the authorities undertook this step ahead of the elections into the local councils.
“Now the Ministry of information finally turns into a monopolist on the information field of Belarus: if previously its activities mostly concentrated on printed editions, then now the Ministry has every tools to affect electronic media likewise. The new re-registration procedure will become a painful problem for many, being kind of a cleansing in itself,” – said in an interview to Radio Ratsya Mikhail Pastukhov.
The experts’ warnings are well-grounded, being based on a few theses of Alexander Lukashenko, which he voiced at his early December meeting with the personnel of the Belarusian TV channels ONT and CTV. The head of state shared his dissatisfaction by a huge number of “improperly registered cable TV companies” and entitled Minister Podgainy to put things into an “ideal order”.
Under the words “ideal order” Lukashenko understands not only registration but also control over the broadcasting of this or that media outlet. Lukashenko ordered all media to comply with his main requirement, that is to keep to the state concept of the societal development.