Journalists Will Be Equated With Rally Participants And Other Changes To Media Law

Journalists may be stripped of accreditation for “illegal act” while on duty

Accord­ing to the pro­posed draft law, a media jour­nal­ist is pro­hib­it­ed from using his posi­tion to dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion in order to defame any cit­i­zen on grounds of gen­der, age, race or nation­al­i­ty, lan­guage, reli­gion, pro­fes­sion, place of res­i­dence or work, polit­i­cal con­vic­tions, as well as dis­cred­it gov­ern­ment agen­cies and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions.

In addi­tion, a jour­nal­ist may be deprived of accred­i­ta­tion if he or the edi­to­r­i­al board vio­lat­ed a pre­scribed pro­ce­dure for accred­i­ta­tion or dis­sem­i­nat­ed false infor­ma­tion dis­cred­it­ing the busi­ness rep­u­ta­tion of the orga­ni­za­tion that accred­it­ed him, as well as if the jour­nal­ist com­mit­ted a delib­er­ate ille­gal act in the course of his pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties.

It is pro­posed to intro­duce a respon­si­bil­i­ty of the jour­nal­ist to obtain the con­sent of the edi­tor-in-chief for the prepa­ra­tion of infor­ma­tion mes­sages or mate­ri­als for use in oth­er media or on inter­net resources. Among the pro­pos­als is that the name of the online out­let should coin­cide with the domain name of the inter­net resource.

Publication of survey results may be prohibited

In the media and on inter­net resources, it is pro­posed to pro­hib­it the pub­li­ca­tion of the results of pub­lic opin­ion polls relat­ed to the socio-polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try, repub­li­can ref­er­en­dums, pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, deputies, if they were held with­out appro­pri­ate accred­i­ta­tion. The pub­li­ca­tion of the results of such sur­veys in the doc­u­ment is clas­si­fied as infor­ma­tion, the dis­sem­i­na­tion of which is pro­hib­it­ed, which entails a num­ber of legal con­se­quences.

Also, hyper­links to infor­ma­tion mes­sages con­tain­ing infor­ma­tion pro­hib­it­ed for dis­tri­b­u­tion are clas­si­fied as pro­hib­it­ed infor­ma­tion. The legal enti­ty entrust­ed with the func­tions of the media edi­to­r­i­al office, accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, must not allow the dis­sem­i­na­tion of false infor­ma­tion that may harm state or pub­lic inter­ests. The doc­u­ment pro­pos­es to expand the list of grounds for issu­ing a writ­ten warn­ing to the media out­let.

The pro­posed draft law estab­lish­es the require­ment to use a hyper­link when dis­trib­ut­ing infor­ma­tion on the inter­net that was pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished on anoth­er resource (unless oth­er­wise pro­vid­ed for by the copy­right hold­er). More­over, accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, a writ­ten warn­ing may be issued for reprint­ing mate­ri­als in vio­la­tion of the dis­tri­b­u­tion con­di­tions stip­u­lat­ed by the orig­i­nal source.

Media can be deprived of their credentials without a court decision

It is pro­posed to grant the author­i­ty to take a deci­sion on the ter­mi­na­tion of the release of media by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion in the event that the media and the own­er of the online out­let issue two or more writ­ten warn­ings with­in a year, as well as in the event that the Inter­de­part­men­tal Com­mis­sion on Infor­ma­tion Secu­ri­ty under the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil of Belarus decides that Mass media of mate­ri­als and mes­sages, the dis­sem­i­na­tion of which can lead to the emer­gence of threats to nation­al secu­ri­ty. In sub­stan­ti­at­ing the need for the adop­tion of the draft law, this is argued by the need to “reduce the bur­den on the judi­cia­ry” and “prompt­ly sup­press the dis­sem­i­na­tion of ille­gal infor­ma­tion.”

The same deci­sion by the Inter­de­part­men­tal Com­mis­sion on Secu­ri­ty in the Infor­ma­tion Sphere under the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil of Belarus is pro­posed to be made anoth­er rea­son for restrict­ing access to an inter­net resource, an online out­let. In addi­tion, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion may decide to restrict access to an inter­net resource if two or more demands of the min­istry were issued dur­ing the year, and two or more writ­ten warn­ings regard­ing the online out­let.

It is also pro­posed to grant pow­ers to make deci­sions on restrict­ing access to an inter­net resource and an online out­let by a res­o­lu­tion of the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al, pros­e­cu­tors of regions and Min­sk for dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion “aimed at pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties or con­tain­ing calls for such activ­i­ties”, as well as infor­ma­tion the dis­sem­i­na­tion of which is capa­ble of harm­ing the nation­al inter­ests of the coun­try.

The deci­sion to restrict access can be made with­in 6 months after the grounds arise both in rela­tion to inter­net resources and in rela­tion to online out­lets. Pre­vi­ous­ly, a peri­od of 3 months was set for online out­lets. The doc­u­ment also pro­pos­es to block access to inter­net resources that are con­fus­ing­ly sim­i­lar to those to which access is restrict­ed.

In the pro­posed draft law, the term of the pro­hi­bi­tion on the right to act as a founder of a media out­let for an indi­vid­ual was increased from three to five years after its release was ter­mi­nat­ed on the grounds spec­i­fied in the law. A sim­i­lar ban is estab­lished for legal enti­ties. For inter­net resources, in respect of which a deci­sion was made to restrict access, a ban has been estab­lished to be a founder of a media out­let for three years. In addi­tion, the oblig­a­tory con­di­tion of Belaru­sian cit­i­zen­ship for edi­tors-in-chief is can­celled.

Among the rea­sons for refus­ing state reg­is­tra­tion or re-reg­is­tra­tion as a media, the fol­low­ing may appear: the name of the media coin­cides or is con­fus­ing­ly sim­i­lar to the name of the out­let in respect of which the ter­mi­na­tion deci­sion was made, if the name of the online out­let does not coin­cide with the domain name of the inter­net resource, and also if the edi­tor-in-chief does not have the right to occu­py this posi­tion accord­ing to the same law.

Journalists may be equated with rally participants

“In the upcom­ing amend­ments to the law on mass media, if an event is not per­mit­ted by law, then any jour­nal­ist present there is no longer a jour­nal­ist, but sim­ply a cit­i­zen who par­tic­i­pates in an unau­tho­rized event. I think this is cor­rect. What is there to com­ment on, you have to be loy­al, you have to be law-abid­ing,” said chair­man of the pub­lic asso­ci­a­tion Belaya Rus Gen­nady Davy­d­ko.

It is worth not­ing that this may not be a final ver­sion of the draft law. Such a doc­u­ment has not been sub­mit­ted to the par­lia­ment, the press ser­vice reports. Such a doc­u­ment does not appear in the list of bills pend­ing before the com­mis­sion on human rights, eth­nic rela­tions and the media.

Judg­ing by the data from the doc­u­ment, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion was engaged in its devel­op­ment. The Depart­ment of Legal Sup­port and Con­trol over Com­pli­ance with the Leg­is­la­tion of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion declined to com­ment on the prepa­ra­tion of a draft law on amend­ing laws on mass media.

The doc­u­ment, which is at the dis­pos­al of the TUT.BY edi­tors, bears the sig­na­ture of the Min­is­ter of Infor­ma­tion Igor Lut­sky. How­ev­er, the head of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion him­self could not con­firm or deny the infor­ma­tion that the depart­ment had pre­pared such a doc­u­ment.

Source: TUT.BY