"Everyone is guaranteed freedom of thoughts and beliefs and their free expression. No one shall be forced to express one’s beliefs or to deny them. No monopolization of the mass media by the State, public associations or individual citizens and no censorship shall be permitted."
(Article 33 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus)

Introduction
The Internet exists over frontiers and boundaries, it functions as a complicated open system, rather chaotic than centralized. And of course this sphere of freedom is an irritant for the governments, corporations, conservatives and secret services, who are eager to spread their control over it. It is impossible to control the Internet as a very complicated and open information system. At the same time it is easy to track down an individual, spreading information there, if he or she is not maneuvering enough to use the methods to avoid this control, such as switching off the IP or Tor.
Moreover, the introduction of the neoliberal regulation into the net, exactly in the same way, as it was recently done in the sphere of education, medicine and housing, destroys social networks and establishes market regulations in the sphere of information, including news, free software, films and music download, torrents trackers and file share.
Censorship in Belarus
Censorship in Belarus, although it is prohibited by the Constitution, exists not only in the form of the suppressing of the freedom of speech, but also as limitation of the freedom of press and censorship in music. Various laws have been enforced the right to freedom of speech, such as a criminal law that states that insulting the president is punishable by up to five years in prison, and a criminal law that states that discrediting – that is to say criticizing Belarus abroad is punishable by up to two years in prison. It is not surprising, while Belarus has been often criticized for its repressive and authoritarian regime – where the election fraud is a common practice, the independent journalists are repressed, and the economy is corrupt. The economic and political systems remain there highly centralized, with the executive authority vested in the office of the president.
It is generally known, that the regime of A. Lukashenka systematically curtails freedom of press. “Libel” is both a civil and a criminal offense. State media are subordinated to the president, harassment and censorship of independent media became the routine. Belarusian national television is completely under the state control and does not provide coverage of alternative and opposition views. The State Press Committee issues warnings to publishers for unauthorized activities such as distributing copies abroad and reporting on unregistered organizations; it can also arbitrarily shut down publications without a court order. The news bulletins and daily playlists of all FM radio stations are censored. The state-run press distribution monopoly refused in 2005 to continue distribution of most of the country’s independent newspapers, though it resumed distribution of limited copies of two popular publications, “Narodnaya Wolya” and “Nasha Niva”.
There are several authors whose books are forbidden in Belarus. The prominent and internationally known journalist Svetlana Alexievich, who published several books about the hidden history of the Soviet totalitarianism, such as the Chernobyl catastrophe and Soviet-Afgan war, have to live in exile, while she was accused in Belarus for working for the CIA. The most widely read Belarusian author Vasil Bykov, antifascist and humanist, who was nominated for the Nobel prize, endured defamation under the rule of Lukashenka and had to leave the country. Published in 2009 book “Paranoia” by Victor Martinovich, the first one Belarusian dystopia, criticizing the state and regime, which resembles Belarus a lot, was forbidden in the country.
Professor Yury Bandazhevsky, the most famous dissident, and prisoner of consciousness, who made a research of the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe, was imprisoned after he published reports critical of the official data. His research alarmed the increase in heart problems and birth defects among children after the Chernobyl.
In recent years, censorship methods in the Internet have become increasingly sophisticated. There are various ways to hinder free circulation of information in the Internet, such as blocked access to the websites, mirror or faked websites, filters and hidden censorship (such as the message saying “the connection failed” or “connection timeout”). All these measures are not new for Belarus, the country, where, following the “best traditions” of the Soviet totalitarianism there are no standards of human rights observation and the freedom of press is rather limited. For instance, journalists writing for the opposition news website charter97.org received threats in July 2009 after the site posted an article about a racism case.
It is impossible to control the Internet, the complicated and branchy rhizomatic open system, which tends to self-development. In order to control it one has to create a more complicated system – a kind of the Absolute or the God. The idea to control the Internet is even not an authoritarian idea, it is an absolutistic idea. And it clearly illustrates the tendency of the political regime in Belarus to absolutism and the pretensions of Lukashenka to get the omnipotence there.
Following this inconceivable desire, on February the 1st in 2010 Lukashenka has signed the notorious decree “On Measures for Revising Use of the National Segment of the World Wide Web”, which came in power on July 1st. It caused outrage and protests by journalists and human rights activists: according to the decree, the data of computers and mobile phones are subjected to control, and their exploitation has to be protocoled. The new decree is really harsh, while it significantly limits the freedom for the Internet-users. It also allows the officials to condemn journalists to the moral damage compensation for criticizing the authorities. About one year before the planned presidential elections, the Internet censorship in Belarus is introduced by the authoritarian government. So, websites and the Internet-users will be increasingly controlled by the special unit of the presidential administration.
Not by accidence, Lukashenka's last chief ideologist - Oleg Proleskowski - was recently appointed minister for the media. The decree is supported by the widespread propaganda campaign, for instance, the TV-channels broadcast the materials about the Internet security and the arrest of two hackers.
Lukashenka’s decree is primarily aimed at blocking oppositional websites during the election campaign. The authorities in Belarus are willing to monitor, which websites and how often do visit the people in Belarus, what do they write in their e-mails, chats, messengers, social networks and webblogs.
The special body, subjected to the Presidential Administration will have the right to control the private correspondence in the Internet. This interference of the state into the inviolable autonomy of private life aims to establishing there the cult of the omnipresent penalizing control. In result the occupation of the free space for self-reflection occurs. But the control just provokes distrust to the authorities, leading either to the alienation from the political life or to the creation of the alternatives. We could hope, that people, disillusioned with the state politics of control, will self-organize and create their own media, as it was in 2006 during the time of the revolutionary events in the country. Resisting to the mass manipulation of the state media, the people created the news, posting messages, photos and videos in the Interent. The role of the independent self-organized open news resource http: //belarus.indymedia.org was extremely important then for the alternative representation of the mass protests and networking.
The most important part of the decree is a requirement to the providers of the Internet services to keep record and store information about the Internet services in the special journals during 12 months. The attendance of the cyber-cafe will be with passport only. It allows monitoring traffic, rendered the Internet services, identifying users, who regularly visit certain websites, for instance oppositional ones. It means control over information in the Internet.
The decree also consists a concrete description concerning the prohibition to get in the Internet of the defined information, for instance, child porn, violence, extremist materials, which means that the state takes the function of the censor. The Internet-providers have to limit the access to the websites, containing materials about the extremist activities; illegal arms and drugs trade; assistance to the illegal immigration and human traffic; spread of pornography; propaganda of violence, cruelty and other forbidden by law activities. For instance, the websites of the islamists Kavkazcenter.com, and quite harmless islam.by and gay-chatroom gay.by are temporary blocked in Belarus. This prohibitive legislature is used in Belarus mostly in the repressive measures against activists and independent journalists. For instance, in 2009 the LGBT activists and web-journalists from Belarus were accused of spreading child pornography on their website. The persecution of the pornography is not an invention of Lukashenka’s regime, it rather corresponds to the Internet regulation of the new puritanism in the EU, and especially Poland.
According to the decree, personally liable for the content of information displayed in the Internet are only those who posted this information. The Internet was for a long time a source of alternative information, nowadays the authorities are eager to persecute the free-thinking and to call to account the journalists and Internet-users. These changes also display the overgrowth of the repressive apparatus in Belarus and its interconnection with the ideological apparatus. In its absolute strive to control it is eager to subject the Internet as well. This strive is pathological and will lead only to self-control, self-censorship among the people (knowing that one is being identified and traced by officials, both readers and writers will be much more cautious and less willing to view the websites criticizing the regime), and finally, self-destruction.
The Internet as a tremendous source of information and knowledge, which leaves behind any existing library, is valuable for self-education. The number of people who have the Internet access could be compared with the level of literacy in the country.
Corruption of Ethics
In order to justify this decree the president publicly appeals to the morals and, as “the father of the nation”, heads the fight against child pornography, crime, illegal immigration and drugs. The censorship of the Internet is sanctioned as well by “the father of the souls of the nation”, the leader of the Orthodox Church in Belarus, metropolitan Filaret. He mentioned, that it would be great to regulate the Internet “accordance with the progressive Chinese experience” in order to “save the youth from the influence of the immoral information”. Echoing his words, the head of the National Writers Union, such a mediocrity Nikolay Chegrinec justified the closing of the website in case if it is proclaimed to be “immoral”. But what’s behind the unexpected uprise of the “political correctness” in the authoritarian-ruled country? In the Belarusian variant it means that no one can criticize the Belarusian authorities and the president himself. The responsibility for this “crime” is interpreted as the responsibility for the “moral damage”, which means, admittedly, that to criticize the authorities is “unmoral”. So, the moral values in Belarus were replaced by the virtue of the adherence to the authorities.
In December 2009 the Committee on the Internet Crime, whose officials have the right to spy on the activities of the people in the Internet, was created by Lukashenka. This administrative body is subjected to his authority only.
The centralization of the Internet in Belarus is organized as centralization of the animal farm - it is made by the people who have hardly any clue about the character of communication in the Internet. Anonymity and identity change presents one of its aspects. The demand to register online information resources as printed newspapers and magazines and to identify their users could come only to the minds of the people why studied journalism for the regional newspapers. The centralization presents realization of desire of total control, which is still in the minds of the ruling class – the “vertical”, who are the off-springs of the Soviet authorities.
In the beginning of August, 2007, while visiting "Soviet Belarus" newspaper's office (it is the leading newspaper in the country, the ideological organ of the presidential administration),
A. Lukashenka said that "We should stop the anarchy in the Internet". Belarusian TV followed him and showed a propaganda film discrediting free Internet, and also soviet-propaganda style film "Net Wars".
The Internet was regarded until now as the last sphere of freedom of expression in Belarus, the country, which already in 2006 was mentioned among 13 “enemies of the Internet" by the international media watchdog the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) - among Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. Abusing this decree, most of Belarusian news websites can be closed under a plausible excuse. De facto, providers in Belarus would be required to have a system analogous to the Russian SORM (System for Operative Investigative Activities, or Lawfully Authorized Electronic Surveillance, LAES). Belarus does not have systems monitoring the Internet traffic analogous to the Russian SORM-2. However, it is likely that the Belarusian and Russian special services cooperate in this sphere. Over 70 percent of the Internet traffic in Belarus goes through Russia and part of it is processed through the Russian system SORM-II. Some providers confirm that the authorities have unofficially requested that all user logins be kept for up to one month and be turned over to the security services on their demand.
The independent journalists, bloggers, human rights activists and foreign observers criticize the project of the law and the intensification of the Internet-censorship and limitation the freedom of speech in Belarus. They were the first who responded to the state’s attack against the social and political function of the media.
In accordance with the decree, the Internet-resources in Belarus will be controlled by a special service, the Operating and Analytical Centre (OAC) under Lukashenka’s Administration. As expected, the OAC has been appointed responsible for the ByNet. In fact, the controlling agency – the OAC was built over the state Internet operator Beltelecom and will control the Internet providers and registration of .by domain names in the country. For the activities of the centre the budget of the country for 2010 provides over 3 mln. Euro (12 540 583 000 BLR).
Off course, Internet-users will also be watched over: for instance, the owners of computer clubs and cyber-cafes must identify their customers. Information about user’s devices, personal data on the Internet-users and information about the Internet services rendered must be submitted upon request of state bodies which carry out investigative activities, prosecution agencies, and preliminary investigation agencies. In the case of gross violations of the law an Internet service provider can stop rendering Internet service to a firm or individual.
Internet-Users are Potential Criminals
In 2001 a Presidential Decree extended the concept of “national security” to include the Internet as a potential threat. The special bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB received the right to seize data distributed through any channel of communication in order to fight criminal activity and guarantee state security. This law established the right of the KGB to obtain any data considered to be “relevant” from state entities and from private or public organizations, and also gives the KGB unlimited access to the information systems (including log files and so on) of communication providers.
This extraordinary measures on the control over Internet-users, who are described in the decree rather as potential offenders, will very likely lead to the criminalization of Internet, when practically each user could be accused in violation of law, and, regardless of the presumption of innocence, imprisonment. Already in 2005 Lukashenka attempted to prevent the “illegal” spread of the personal information through the dating websites and social networks. This measure was most likely designed to prevent the immigration from the country. The first restrictions on the content of information were placed already in 2006, carried out by the “Republic Committee on Prevention of Pornography, Violence, and Cruelty Propaganda”.
A number of articles of the Belarusian Criminal Code restrict the freedom of speech and effectively criminalize any criticism of the government and the president in particular. These laws include: articles 188 (defamation), 189 (insult), 367 (defamation of the President), 368 (insult to the President) and 369 (insult to a government official). Defamation and insult through the media are prosecuted under articles 188 and 189 with imprisonment up to two years. Defamation of the President is punishable with imprisonment of up to five years.
If the information is “to the detriment of internal security, sovereignty or territorial integrity”, or if distributed through mass media, the offence is aggravated up to 5 years’ imprisonment. Violations of freedom of expression and journalists rights are well documented by international organizations such as the UNHCR, the Amnesty International, the Reporters without Frontiers, Article 19 and others, whose continuous appeals for change are ignored by the Belarusian government.
In 2006 the Reporters Without Borders listed Belarus as one of the 13 "Internet enemies". In 2007, the Reporters Without Borders ranked Belarus number 154 out of 173 countries in its 2008 press freedom index. In the 2009 Freedom House Country Report, Belarus was one of the only two European countries to be rated as "Not Free". The Lukashenka’s regime systematically curtails freedom of press, the organization says. State media are subordinated to the president, and harassment and censorship of independent media are routine.
In the past few years, many Belarusian musicians and bands have been unofficially banned from radio and television, have had their concert licenses revoked, and have had their interviews censored in the media. Researchers Maya Medich and Lemez Lovas wrote in their report “Hidden Truths. Music, Politics and Censorship in Lukashenka´s Belarus” in 2006 that "independent music-making in Belarus today is an increasingly difficult and risky enterprise", and that the Belarusian government "puts pressure on ‘unofficial’ musicians - including ‘banning’ from official media and imposing severe restrictions on live performance". The policies of the Belarusian government tend to divide Belarusian musicians into pro-government "official" and pro-democracy "unofficial" camps. Economic barriers have been placed against various artists, leading to self-censorship of many artists.
Since 2007 all the cyber-cafes in Belarus should have an electronic journal of the domain names of the websites, visited by the users by the resolution of the Council of Ministers. And also in the cases, determined by the legislature, the owners of the cyber-cafes have to put it on the disposal to the organs of the national security and the state control.
In 2008 the list of countries- Enemies of the Internet included 15 countries: Belarus, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Vietnam.
Reporters Without Borders underline that cyber-freedom in Belarus is under threat because of the scandalous Decree on censorship on the Internet. The organization has made a statement of protest expressing their concern over the plans of the Belarusian government to tighten control over the Internet, attracting attention to the fact that the freedom of speech in Belarus is considerably limited even without that.
“After placing most of the traditional media under its control, the regime is pursuing an offensive against new media”. The press freedom organization added: “The president’s attempts to be reassuring cannot hide the repressive nature of this bill… It should be abandoned so that Belarus is not added to the list of countries such as North Korea, China and Iran that Reporters Without Borders has identified as Enemies of the Internet.” In its monitoring of online freedom, Reporters Without Borders has until now classified Belarus as a country “under surveillance”, while it has only one Internet-provider - Beltelecom, the access to opposition websites is blocked during major political events and the Cyber-cafe owners are required under a February 2007 decree to alert the police about customers who visit “sensitive” sites and keep a record of all the sites visited during the previous 12 months on each computer and make it available to the police if requested.
All the internal and external data-traffic in Belarus goes through the infrastructure of the operator-monopolist Beltelecom, and it is easy to filter it. All the Internet-modems are counted and registered under the defined IP-address. For instance, the filtering of gay and lesbian websites has been an official policy since the beginning of 2005, on the basis that they contain pornographic material. Interestingly, these websites were inaccessible on all the Internet-providers except for the state-owned Beltelecom. It’s control over external connection channels allows for the creation of an effective system for regulating Internet-traffic. During presidential elections, access to opposition and independent media sites appear to have been temporarily blocked. In 2006 the indirect filtering of opposition sites was documented. Some specialists have suggested that, during presidential elections, Beltelecom established so-called shaping practices—that is, deliberately slowing down access to specific IP addresses. Beltelecom allegedly received special “requests” by authorities to block certain websites for a limited period. Self-censorship by Internet-users has become a pervasive phenomenon. In 2005 the popular Belarusian portal tut.by refused to put up banners advertising opposition websites. It is unknown whether this activity was a result of pressure by the authorities or merely an attempt to protect its own business.
Most cyber-cafes restrict access to sites containing pornography, terrorist material, and proxy-related material. Cyber-cafes install software that either blocks URLs within the list of forbidden sites or alerts the administrator if such a URL is visited. The restricted URL list includes websites forbidden for distribution by the Republic Committee on Prevention of Pornography, Violence, and Cruelty Propaganda. Administrators often require passport identification of customers. Some cyber-cafes also limit the volume of Internet-traffic and decrease the download speed when exceeded. On the request of state security services, administrators keep the logs of users’ activity on the net.
State Monopoly over the Internet
In September 2006 the resolution of the Council of Ministers appeared – “On Some Aspects of the Realization of the Retail Sale by Samples Through Internet”, which placed the restrictions on the activities of the Internet-shops, which have to be hosted in the national domain zone .by. By July 1, 2010, firms and individuals must secure transfer to the information networks, systems and resources of the national Internet segment hosted in Belarus; Internet service providers must secure registration of such networks and systems. In order to access the Internet even in dial-up mode, Belarusians would have to show passport to the provider first.
On the surface, the document is aimed at the further regulation and monopolization of online businesses: e-commerce, hosting services and Internet service providers. The entrepreneurs can be punished by suspension of rendering services by them without a decision of the court. Stations of users’ identification are to exist as well. Thus, all the websites, addressed to the Belarusian audience and created by the citizens of Belarus (sic!), should have the domain name in the .by zone and be placed on the Belarusian servers. The re-registration of the websites will bring astonishing profits to the state monopolist, as well as resettlement of the websites on the Belarusian servers. We can only guess where the providers in Belarus will find the capacities to place on their servers thousands of the removed websites? Or will it also persecute students, working freelance for the foreign contractors? The authorities justify this measure by the supposedly reduction of prices for the Internet-traffic. But it will only bring profits to the state Internet monopolist. Any commercial activities in the Internet are regulated by the state. All the Internet-providers are legally obliged to register domain names with the State Center of Information Security, as well as to obtain a license for retail trade by e-commerce activities. International electronic payment systems are seriously limited in Belarus. All international monetary transfers must occur through banks that notify the tax authorities of all fund transfers from abroad.
The usage of the term the “National Segment of the Internet” concerning the global network is rather absurd and displays the ambition of the state authorities to maximize their profits from the Internet. Sooner or later it will contradict with the interests of the transnational corporations, presented by the WTO, whose aim is the introduction of the market regulations in the Internet for the sake of the profiting of the global capitalism. Some international software companies and search-engine hosts – who eager to increase their profits - are cooperating with governments that limit their people’s access to the Internet. For instance, in accordance with the WTO’s accession requirements of 2007, Beltelecom should be privatized and its monopoly on external communication channels should be ended. The Ministry of Communications and Informatization has agreed to privatize Beltelecom, but the government remains the controlling shareholder. The ministry has also declared that Beltelecom’s control over external communication channels will remain after privatization, with licenses given only to those operators that have built their own external communication infrastructure.
The state monopoly over the Internet which allows the ruling authorities to fix the prices for the Internet. This turns the Internet as an efficient source of information into the luxury for the most of the population. We live nowadays in the information society, where the access to information presents one of the main factors which create differentiation in the society. High prices for the Internet will create inequality and barriers for gaining knowledge and information. The Internet-elite will profit from getting information faster – they will react faster as well. But the Internet is so necessary in the contemporary society, as electricity. It should be accessible for everyone.
Blogosphere
The development of the blogosphere in Belarus stands out especially against the background of their classical media landscapes. The webblogs provide there alternative spaces, free of the political and economic restrictions which hinder the development of the classical media in Belarus. While the new Belarusian law on the Internet-censorship shows insecurity and fear, in Russia, by contrast, some political strategists try to ride the wave by using the social networks, for instance, facebook and twitter, for creating the populist image of President Medvedev. At the same time there were cases of the legal persecution of the bloggers in Russia. The web-blogs in Belarus are considered by several analytics as an information sphere where ski-jump for the democratic changes.
For instance, in 2007 the Internet-community and oppositional political movement "Third Way" prepared a satirical version of the Internet - LuNet. The project was intended to show how dangerous and absurd at the same time are Lukashenka's demands of control over the Internet in Belarus. The project consisted of the fake copies by the state-controlled Internet-resources - “Lundex search engine”, “LuTube video service”, “LuJournal blog service” and the most "honest" “portal Tut.lu”. The creators of the project attracted Belarusian and foreign media, politicians, and community's attention to the issue of the Internet surveillance, which concerns millions of people in Belarus. The project was broadly supported by the opposition and neoliberals.
Free Exchange of Information as “Piracy”
The decree also introduces the institution of copyright over intellectual property in the Internet, which will pave the way for the media-corporations, and allow them to buy massively copyrights for music, film and news.
In the countries of the “global North” the censorship in the Internet is broadly used in order to maintain controls over the persons’ activities there – in order to prevent spread of radical ideologies and terrorism and to promote lobbing of the media-corporations. Anyway, the trails against the Napster (music-sharing service) and the Pirate Bay (the biggest one torrent tracker in the world) lasted for several years. In result both of the services were closed in this sweep of the intellectual property rights, but during this time several new services appeared, where the amateurs of the pirate media moved. There were also several precedents, when the people were judged for the usage if the pirate media-products. But these trials were more demonstrative, the people got only fines. And every year these products are still used by the millions of the users.
The recent changes in the Belarusian legislature rather remind of the experience of the countries of the “global South”, such as China and Iran, where the main objective of the censorship is the total control over the usage and production of information. The great Chinese Firewall filters all the traffic in China. In march 2010 Google shut down search services in China because of the political censorship. The activity of the Chinese hackers is astonishing, while they are supposedly protected by the state. The prospect of Belarus is the creation of the small China, which experience was studied by the Belarusian specialists in order to regulate the Internet in Belarus.
In Germany the freedom in the Internet is restricted as well – for instance, it is forbidden to download software, films and music, and all the firms and organizations have to backup the traffic of their employees once a year and present this information to the authorities. These measures are justified as well by the war on terrorism and child pornography. These paranoia and puritanism are absurd, hypocritical and mean. In the societies where the censorship exists and the freedom of information is restricted, the cliques in power suppose, that they monopolize in such a way the function of Kassandra, and the people are so blind, infantile and analphabet, that can’t analyze the information field themselves and differentiate the truth from lie, the good from the bad. The accretion of power of the presidential structure is concur with the realization of the new law on the crime prevention, which was signed at the beginning of January in 2010.
Mind-Control in the USSR
The methods which were used by the secret services in the soviet times are more developed nowadays. But they still bear the sign of the KGB. In the USSR the free distribution of information was persecuted, the independent mass media doesn’t exist there, and the foreign radio-stations were jammed. A huge role in the critics of the Soviet totalitarianism played the dissident movement, organized by the activists, who distributed alternative information by the means of “samizdat”. The prolonged concealment and falsification of information leaded to the spread of rumors and lost of faith of the people to the state mass-media and official information.
The Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 was an example of this state tactics of concealment of information, which leaded to the criminal inactivity of the authorities and mass deceit of the people. But the result was unexpected – it provoked self-organization of the people who demanded the open information.

(the article is published by Czarny Sztandar on behalf of belarussian anarchist W. who wants to stay anonumous because of possible state repressions back in Belarus. Please, spread the news!)