Website of Independent News Agency Attacked (Updated with Statement)
The websites of BelaPAN news agency have been under DDoS attack since the weekend.
The attacks on the websites belapan.com and naviny.by started on Saturday, at noon. On Monday, the websites still operated with interruptions.
Earlier, the websites of the news agency was attacked on December 19 – 22, 2014, alongside with several other independent resources. However, the previous time BelaPAN reported that the problem occurred through blocking of the IP address. Then, BAJ demanded investigation of the attacks, however, all the state agencies (General prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the OAC, the Ministry of Informatization and Communications) bureaucratically dismissed the petition.
BelaPAN claimed the DDoS atatck has been a deliberate prevention of free flow of information.
“The attacks were launched after a critical article about last week’s «Prayer for Belarus» ceremony was posted on naviny.by. It featured interviews with students sent to the event featuring Alyaksandr Lukashenka. We believe that it is this objective coverage, which was not aimed at pleasing authorities, that angered ideology workers who then ordered our websites hit by the DDoS attacks.
We view the incident as flagrant pressure on an independent media outlet and a violation of the constitutional principles of freedom of speech and freedom of the media. This is happening during a presidential election campaign. Such incidents should be taken into account by observers in their assessment of the conditions in which Belarus’ presidential election has taken place.
BelaPAN is an officially registered media outlet. In accordance with the requirements of Belarusian laws our server is located in Belarus, in the data center of state communications monopolist Beltelecom. We demand that the safe maintenance of our sites and protection against any attempts at harming their full-scale operation be provided,» says BelaPAN in its statement.
Related:
Regulation of ByNet (summary)