Reporters Without Borders expresses concern about Lukashenka`s intention to end online «anarchy» :: Charter'97 :: News

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has expressed concern about Alyaksandr Lukashenka`s intention to put an end to what he called "anarchy" in the Internet. "It`s time to end the anarchy in the Internet," the Belarusian leader said while visiting the editorial office of the largest government-controlled newspaper Sovetskaya Belorussiya on August 2.

"We should not allow this great technical achievement of humankind to turn into an information sewer," Mr. Lukashenka said, suggesting enacting a law that would specify the status of online media outlets. "We`ll not be pioneers in this regard, such practices exist in many states," he noted.

"The main threat to the Belarusian Internet is a slow death by suffocation as a result of the repression organized from the highest levels of government," commented the Paris-headquartered international media watchdog. "The control that Belarus exercises over online news and information is one of the strictest of all the countries of the former Soviet Union. What Belarus needs is liberalization, not more surveillance."

Zhanna Litvina, chairwoman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said that Mr. Lukashenka`s statement heralded new restrictions on the Internet, which she described as "the only remaining space where free expression is possible" in Belarus.

"Only those who do not use the Internet could describe it as a sewer," commented Yury Ziser, the owner of news aggregator www.tut.by,

Belarus was 151st out of 168 countries in the 2006 RSF ranking of nations in terms respect for press freedom. Only two other post-Soviet countries, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, were ranked worse.