Law of press is not to be considered this year :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarusian “parliamentarians” are not going to consider a new version of the law of press and other mass media. That was reported by member of the commission on human rights, national relations and mass media of the “national assembly house of representatives” Alyaksandr Svirid. According to him, the draft law has not been submitted, to the lower house, yet, because it is still at the stage of development.

As it has been reported by several information agencies, the ministry for information intends to initiate amendments into the law regulating the Internet mass media activities.

Deputy minister of information Igar Laptyonak denied this information in his interview with BelaPAN but he, however, stressed the vital importance of legislative regulation of the Internet mass media activities. Though the world information web does not have any restrictions there should be a “certain order in it”, deputy minister considers. According to him, the Internet products creators speak of the problem of the network oversaturation. “ For several years different suggestions on introduction of amendments into the law have being coming into the House of Representatives, among these being the suggestions from the Internet users and information distributors. I guess, such offers have been sent by journalists either”, Laptyonak told.

Deputy chairman of the public association “Belarusian association of journalists” Andrey Bastunets declared in his interview with BelaPAN that the authorities have long been intending to impose their control over the Internet mass media and perform the role of a certain global web administrator.” Persons acting in this virtual space are governed by the Belarusian legislation as well as the journalists of the printed media. That is why the declaration that those acting in the Internet are beyond the legislation frame is not true”, remarked Bastunets. He supposes that any normative regulatory act of the global information network using may be adopted only at the international but not national level. “The attempts to solve this problem at the local level will only limit the opportunities of the Internet users”, Bastunets considers.