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  • The authorities seized BAJ’s domain name and email address. Using Belarusian hosting and domain name providers is not safe anymore. BAJ to appeal to ICANN

    The Operational and Analytical Center under the President of Belarus seized the domain name of the Belarusian Association of Journalists' website baj.by. The organization considers this a gross violation of property rights and another attack on freedom of speech. BAJ applied to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

    Jan­u­ary 3 the Oper­a­tional Ana­lyt­i­cal Cen­ter under the Pres­i­dent of Belarus announced that it had decid­ed to sus­pend the del­e­ga­tion of the domain name baj.by, whose own­er was alleged­ly involved in the detect­ed vio­la­tions.

    Ear­li­er, the OAC, through the reg­is­trar com­pa­ny OOO Otkry­tyi Kon­takt, sent a notice to the domain own­er request­ing doc­u­ments con­firm­ing the authen­tic­i­ty of per­son­al infor­ma­tion. Efforts from the author­i­ties in this regard began prompt­ly after the BAJ released its stance on host­ing a region­al Inter­net Gov­er­nance Forum in Min­sk.

    OOO Otkry­tyi Kon­takt first offered the domain own­er to send a pass­port scan by e‑mail, but a few days lat­er report­ed that the OAC insist­ed on a per­son­al vis­it of the own­er to the office.

    In reply, Aleh Ahe­jeu, the deputy chair­man of BAJ and the offi­cial own­er of the domain, informed OOO Otkry­tyi Kon­takt that the inter­net domain reg­is­tra­tion guide­lines do not pro­vide for «per­son­al vis­its» to the reg­is­trar’s office. It is worth not­ing that domains in the .by zone can be owned by for­eign­ers. Fur­ther­more, all the required doc­u­ments have already been sub­mit­ted, as con­firmed by the reg­is­ter­ing com­pa­ny itself.

    Despite this, the OAC decid­ed to deprive BAJ of the Belaru­sian domain name.

    «We con­sid­er the depri­va­tion of a domain name as theft. Fur­ther­more, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties vio­lat­ed the prop­er­ty right, in addi­tion to fla­grant­ly breach­ing the right to free­dom of expres­sion.

    For almost 20 years, the inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists had a web­site on this domain name and used it to pro­mote human rights val­ues, stan­dards of jour­nal­is­tic work, and the right to expres­sion. For 20 years, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties have been wag­ing a war on free­dom of expres­sion.

    But even the most severe actions, such as direct con­fis­ca­tion, will not result in the halt­ing of inde­pen­dent media activ­i­ty or the denial of truth­ful infor­ma­tion sources to the peo­ple of Belarus. BAJ will not allow the author­i­ties to legit­imize repres­sion, state cen­sor­ship, and pres­sure on inde­pen­dent media.

    The author­i­ties’ aggres­sive actions vio­late the inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions for domain admin­is­tra­tion. There­fore, BAJ will inform ICANN, the orga­ni­za­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing domain names, and seek an appro­pri­ate assess­ment of the inci­dent at a glob­al lev­el.

    This is the third case of domain seizure by the state involv­ing inde­pen­dent media. It is safe to say that hav­ing a domain in Belarus is now sim­ply dan­ger­ous for any busi­ness. And no com­pa­ny or busi­ness is immune from destruc­tion due to the seizure of the domain by the state for far-fetched rea­sons. Belaru­sian ISPs are dis­cred­it­ed and dan­ger­ous not only for inde­pen­dent media but also for any com­pa­ny that might become the next tar­get,» said Barys Haret­s­ki, BAJ’s deputy chair­man.

    Atten­tion!

    As of today, we do not con­trol the baj.by web­site or any email address­es reg­is­tered with the @baj.by domain name.

    We do not know how the author­i­ties will use them, so please do not vis­it the old web­site or send or reply to emails from email address­es con­tain­ing @baj.by in their name. They are not authored by BAJ!

    We have proac­tive­ly moved our web­site con­tent to the new inter­na­tion­al domain baj.media.

    The main email address of the orga­ni­za­tion and the edi­to­r­i­al office of the site is now office@baj.media

    The email address for inter­na­tion­al con­tacts is intercomm@baj.media

    Read more:

    FIGURES OF THE YEAR. Repression of media and journalists in Belarus in 2023

    The most reassuring thing is getting feedback from the audience». Belarusian independent media’s take on the year’s results and their plans for the future

    Support for journalists and media, solidarity campaigns, European awards, and TikTok launch: BAJ yearly closure

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