Internet Activities to be Controlled by Law In Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

While discussing a new draft law on mass media an issue of regulating activities in Internet has come to the fore. A separate legal system should be created for that, told a chairman of the Standing commission on human rights, national relations and mass media of the “chamber of representatives” Yury Kulakouki at an extended session of the “chamber of representatives” held in the editorial office of the Respublika newspaper.

“As it turned out, the legal field of Internet is not as innocent as expected. The matter does not concern infringement of copyright law. The problem is how to avoid propaganda of violence on the web, how to defend rights of a person, property and so on,” Yury Kulakouski said. It is obvious that such legislative regulations are necessary, but a huge amount of work is awaiting us. Primarily, a number of international agreements are needed. International structures should initiate it, so that a common denominator could be found. This work cannot bring concrete results in just one country,” the head of the parliamentary commission believes.

Yury Kulakouski noted that work on the draft law on mass media is unfortunately slow, though there is a long-felt need to adopt a new regulatory enactment. The current law on press was adopted long ago. 10 years have passed, many things have changed.

According to the deputy, rights of a journalist should be better protected. Yury Kulakouski believes that journalists’ accountability for moral damages should be revised. An author of an article should bear responsibility within a certain period of time. “One year is enough for evaluation of this or that article. But today sometimes it happens that a journalist is sued 20 year after an article’s publication,” Yury Kulakouski said.

The deputy believes that “it’s high time to see this document in the parliament and to start work on it”. He also said that this draft law hasn’t been included into the plan for 2007.