NEW LAW TAKES AIM AT INDEPENDENT INTERNET SITES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MINSK 000478 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2017 TAGS: PGOV PHUM EAID BO SUBJECT: NEW LAW TAKES AIM AT INDEPENDENT INTERNET SITES REF: A. 05 MINSK 1193 ¶B. MINSK 219 Classified By: Ambassador Karen Stewart for reason 1.4 (d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) The GOB lower house recently passed legislation that appears to empower the regime to further repress independent and opposition Belarusian media. Despite its laissez-faire language, independent journalists fear that the bill could permit the regime to investigate the growing number of private bloggers and chatroom users. Furthermore, the new bill reinforces existing legislation frequently used by the GOB to repress its political opponents. End summary. GOB Takes Aim at Internet -------------- ¶2. (C) On April 4, the lower house of the Belarusian parliament invited legal experts from the independent media watchdog Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) to propose amendments to a bill "On Information, Informatization and Protection of Information" drafted by the GOB Council of Ministers. Following the lower house's vote to pass the bill without BAJ's amendments, BAJ representatives and other independent journalists uniformly told us that the effect (and probably the intent) of the new law is to restrain independent and opposition internet media, which are more or less immune to the principal economic instruments of repression used by the regime against independent print media (ref A). They fear that under the guise of liberalization, the new law will modify and extend the reach of such instruments into cyberspace. Independent Websites: To Register or Not To Register? -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) Current GOB law requires online Belarusian media websites (like print newspapers with a yearly print run of more than 299 copies) to register and, in order to register, maintain a legal brick and mortar address. (Note: The GOB frequently denies independent media outlets' requests to lease state-owned space, breaks leases soon after signing them, and pressures private owners to break their leases with the independent media (ref B). End note.) In this respect, Article 37, Part 3, of the new draft law might appear to ease such restrictions by declaring that registration of "non-governmental information systems" shall be done on a "voluntary basis." However, this seemingly liberal declaration seems to contradict a previous clause that mandates that state and "publicly available" information systems shall be subject to "compulsory state registration." ¶4. (C) Pointing to the new bill's broader definition of "information system," BAJ legal expert Andrey Bastunets speculated to Poloff that this apparent contradiction was deliberate and that the regime could use the new phraseology "publicly available" to extend its control not only over all independent websites and servers, but also over individual private computers with internet access. Bastunets added that the authorities could also use the seemingly deliberate vagueness of Article 1, part 2, which empowers the GOB to regulate the "peculiarities of social relations connected with mass media activity," to require the registration of blogs and limit political content in personal email. GOB Seeks Out Its Cyber-Opponents... -------------- ¶5. (C) Many independent internet journalists also believe that the GOB is trying to bolster its control of independent electronic media by legislatively shoring up its means to identify anonymous bloggers. Article 25, Part 2, of the bill requires that distributed information include facts about its owner and distributor "to identify these persons." Online independent newspaper "Solidarnost" Editor Aleksander Starikevich described Article 25 as codifying a February 10 Council of Ministers directive that requires internet cafes to maintain records of all websites their customers visit and grant the BKGB (without a court order) access to these records. Since the regime has a monopoly on internet access through the state-owned telecom company Beltelekom, authorities could deny internet access to cafes that fail to comply with BKGB requests. Alarmed by the directive and the pending legislation, Reporters Without Borders warned that Belarus' cyber cafes are the "last resort for anyone wanting to post critical news without risk of arrest." MINSK 00000478 002 OF 002 To Possibly Imprison Them? -------------- ¶7. (C) Internet-based NGO Charter 97 Executive Director Natalya Radina similarly expressed deep concern that Articles 25 and 37 would permit the regime to prosecute independent journalists working in Belarus for unregistered websites (including those websites using ISPs outside Belarus) under Article 193 of Belarus' Criminal Code (BCC),which criminalizes acting on behalf of an unregistered organization and has been used by the regime in several cases to imprison independent election monitors and other pro-democracy activists. Bastunets was somewhat less concerned but noted that the regime has already shown its willingness to persecute independent political analysts who post on registered organizations' sites by jailing former opposition MP Andrey Klimov on April 3 for his article that contained thoughts on ways to change Belarus' political system. He added that the draft information law's Article 16, which forbids "raising social discord" and encouraging "violent change of the constitutional system," rein forces the law under which Klimov is charged (BCC Article 361) and will face up to five years in prison. Comment -------------- ¶8. (C) Our independent media contacts uniformly pointed out that the GOB could close down all independent media today with existing laws if it wanted. In the past, the GOB likely chose not to do so for the simple reason that it has already so crippled the influence of the independent print media that it no longer poses a significant threat to the regime. The new information law likely reflects the regime's recognition of two realities -- namely, updating its legal rationalizations for repression to match the growing influence of the internet and its strategic need to feign adherence to the rule of law. Stewart