The government is planning to arm itself with every possible weapon to ensure tight control of the Internet through the latest legal provisions. After locking down the traditional media, the regime is ramping up its Internet offensive to intimidate members of the civil society who have found refuge within its portals.

A new liberticidal decree

On February 1, 2010, President Lukashenko signed a Presidential Decree on "Measures to Improve the Use of the National Segment of the Internet Network," which provides for a strong censorship overseen by the presidency. The decree requires that Internet service providers (ISPs) identify and register all Internet access media (computers, telephones, etc.). Cyber café customers will need to identify themselves, and each connection will be recorded and maintained for one year. The same rule applies to shared connection users (i.e., co-owners). Finally, the Decree provides for the creation of an "Analysis Center" that will report to the presidency and be responsible for content surveillance prior to any dissemination over the Internet. This Center will assign domain names and be empowered to order ISPs to close a website. The latter will then have 24 hours to comply. Sites can also be shut down at an ordinary citizen's request, thereby introducing a form of online denunciation. The thirty-odd existing ISPs must use the bandwidth provided by Belpak, an affiliate of Beltelekom that occupies a monopoly position, thus facilitating control and surveillance.

More-than-dubious intentions denounced by the international community

The President of Belarus tries to appear reassuring: every individual will be free to do whatever he wants on the Internet: The purpose of the Decree is to "protect the rights of Belarussian citizens, the society and the state in the field of information," to defend morality and intellectual property, and to encourage further growth of the Internet for economic purposes. Only it is difficult to believe someone who, several months ago, had announced his intention to "eliminate anarchy on the Internet" while referring to the Chinese model. No one has been duped: his real aim is to prevent the opposition from expressing their views on the Internet just before the 2011 presidential elections. The Decree is slated to enter into force in July 2010.

The European Union has chosen to take a tougher stand toward the "last European dictatorship" by qualifying this Decree as "a step in the wrong direction." The EU and the OSCE are currently reviewing the text to determine whether or not it is compatible with the commitments that Belarus has made with those two bodies.

A vibrant online civil society, despite the crackdown

Nearly three million Belarussians actively surf the Web. Dissidents, independent journalists and the civil society as a whole have found the Internet to be a space for discussion and exchanges of opinion that no longer exists in the traditional media. Dozens of cyber cafés in the capital, Minsk, as well as in the rest of the country, are their main access points. Since a decree issued in 2007, they have been subject to a form of surveillance by the authorities.

Belarussian netizens have already paid the price of repression. Andrei Klimau, the first opposition activist to be prosecuted after posting an article on the Internet, was given a two-year prison term in August 2007 for "inciting the overthrow of the regime." He was released in February 2008. Cyber attacks against independent sites like Charter 97 – the country's most frequently visited opposition website – or the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty website, are common, as are threats against their journalists, or blockings during major political events and demonstrations. The anew Press Law of August 2008 established control over online publications.

The Belarus online community mobilizes quickly, and its activism is echoed within the society. In protest against the elimination of free public transport for the elderly, indignant Internet users and bloggers asked their fellow countrymen to hand out bus tokens to senior citizens. Several hundred people pitched in, and the initiative was filmed and posted on the Internet – an unmistakable way of defying the authorities, similar to what happened on "Democracy Day," when citizens blackened one side of the token to affirm their allegiance to democracy.

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