Statement of BAJ Denouncing Hacker Attack on Belapan Websites

The attacks were launched after a crit­i­cal arti­cle about last week’s «Prayer for Belarus» cer­e­mo­ny was post­ed on naviny.by, the arti­cle telling about com­pul­so­ry par­tic­i­pa­tion of stu­dents in the reli­gious event with polit­i­cal col­or­ing.

Expe­ri­ence lead us to assume that the attack has aimed to pun­ish the resources for doing their pro­fes­sion­al duties.

It should be under­lined that this rough inter­fer­ence into work of inde­pen­dent mass media is tak­ing place in the midst of the elec­toral cam­paign when peo­ple more than ever seek for uncen­sored infor­ma­tion.

We think it is anoth­er man­i­fes­ta­tion of the sys­temic pol­i­cy of con­trol over infor­ma­tion in our coun­try aimed to manip­u­late pub­lic opin­ion.

We back the demand of the infor­ma­tion­al com­pa­ny Bela­PAN to ensure prop­er main­te­nance for web­sites in the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus and pro­tect them from any attacks.

BAJ calls to stop any attacks on mass media in order to ensure the con­sti­tu­tion­al cit­i­zen right to get uncen­sored infor­ma­tion from mul­ti­ple sources.

Adopt­ed by the Board of BAJ

Octo­ber 10, 2015