The Ministry of Information Failed to Share Draft Amendments to Mass Media Law THE MEETING RESULTS

Apart from the stand­ing com­mit­tee mem­bers and oth­er par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, the meet­ing was attend­ed by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion offi­cials, includ­ing Deputy Min­is­ter of Infor­ma­tion Pavel Lioh­ki, the BAJ Chair­per­son Andrei Bas­tunets, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of main­stream media, includ­ing Onliner.by, Tut.by, Radio Lib­er­ty, Bela­PAN, and ‘Sovi­et­skaya Byelorus­sia’ as well as by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Belaru­sian Union of Jour­nal­ists Siarhei Svierku­nou, direc­tor of Press Club Belarus Mikalai Anishchanka, and a leader of ‘Tell the Truth!’ move­ment Andrei Dzmit­ryeu. Among oth­er, the meet­ing was attend­ed by an Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Han­na Kana­p­atskaya.

The BAJ Chair­per­son Andrei Bas­tunets told the BAJ Press Ser­vice that Han­na Kana­p­atskaya drew the meet­ing par­tic­i­pants’ atten­tion to the prospec­tive legal norm that pro­vides for extra­ju­di­cial block­ing of Web-resources and impos­si­bil­i­ty to chal­lenge the deci­sion in court: “It’s a very tough mea­sure, since it’s pos­si­ble to appeal even against the offi­cial warn­ings, issued by the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion in court”.

Also, a TUT.BY rep­re­sen­ta­tive Liud­mi­la Chek­ina not­ed that accord­ing to the bill drafters it will be pos­si­ble to restore pub­lic access to the Web-resource by means of lodg­ing a cor­re­spond­ing claim to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of Belarus and the Min­istry will have up to one month to regard the case and take a rel­e­vant deci­sion. “Actu­al­ly, fol­low­ing this kind of sus­pen­sion from activ­i­ty for such a long peri­od of time, a Web-resource can be sim­ply destroyed”, — said Andrei Bas­tunets.

More­over, the meet­ing par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the sug­gest­ed admin­is­tra­tive charges for dis­sem­i­na­tion of banned infor­ma­tion by Web-resources. The bill devel­op­ers failed to explain what infor­ma­tion could be regard­ed as ‘banned’ at that. Also, there were dis­cussed the sug­gest­ed more rigid rules of reg­is­tra­tion for on-line resources in the form of ‘Web-edi­to­ri­als’.

A separate part of discussion was dedicated to the proposed verification procedure for Web-users.

“Appar­ent­ly, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion wouldn’t like to aban­don the idea. There­fore, they are like­ly to pro­pose a sup­ple­men­tary pro­vi­sion with fur­ther expla­na­tion of reg­is­tra­tion pro­ce­dures,” said Andrei Bas­tunets.

The dis­cus­sion last­ed for around 2.5 hours. Pavel Lioh­ki not­ed that some objec­tions are already being con­sid­ered, since they were pre­sent­ed before.

However, the precise content and amount of objections to be taken into consideration by the Ministry of Information in the draft bill to be presented for the second reading in the Chamber of Representatives remain to be unknown.

Andrei Bas­tunets thanked the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for send­ing the draft bill to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists for analy­sis and remarks before its first read­ing in the Cham­ber of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. How­ev­er, he not­ed it would have been bet­ter to receive it at the stage of devel­op­ment. Also, he not­ed that it would have been a good idea to send the draft amend­ments for con­sid­er­a­tion to the OSCE Office for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Insti­tu­tions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

Also, the BAJ Chair­per­son not­ed dur­ing the meet­ing that the draft law was out­dat­ed, since the media sit­u­a­tion is chang­ing quick­ly. Also, he under­scored the irrel­e­vance of exis­tence of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion with the present-day man­date and scope of respon­si­bil­i­ty.

The issue of legal sta­tus for free­lance jour­nal­ists was touched upon dur­ing the meet­ing. How­ev­er, there wasn’t a pos­si­bil­i­ty to dis­cuss con­crete pro­pos­als, there­fore the prob­lem remained unsolved.

Public discussion of changes in the Law on Mass Media: We are like a frog in a heated water that doesn’t feel she’ll be cooked soon

Basic remarks and proposal by BAJ on the draft amendments to the legislation of Belarus on regulation of the media and online resources