Amendments to the Media Law Adopted in 2nd reading

The new amend­ments envis­age iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of com­men­ta­tors on Inter­net news boards, and give the sta­tus of jour­nal­ists only to the work­ers of reg­is­tered dig­i­tal media.  The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the media com­mu­ni­ty had sub­mit­ted their com­ments on the bill to both the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion and the Par­lia­ment. Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter Alexan­der Kar­liuke­vich said that, «some of the pro­pos­als might be tak­en into account.»

The chair­per­son of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, lawyer Andrei Bas­tunets, says that the bill pro­vides for the pos­si­bil­i­ty to chal­lenge the deci­sions of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion in court.  Also, it dropped the norm fopro­vi­sion of fines for online resources. These are some of the aspects that have been under­scored by the media com­mu­ni­ty.

Accord­ing to TUT.BY CEO Lud­mi­la Chek­ina, the bill also changed the def­i­n­i­tion of an online resource own­er and drew a clear line between reg­is­tered online media (that now have the sta­tus of a mass medi­um) and oth­er online resources.

The amend­ments to the Media Law pro­vide for vol­un­tary reg­is­tra­tion of online resources as mass media (they will be called «online pub­li­ca­tions»). The work­ers of unreg­is­tered online resources will not be con­sid­ered jour­nal­ists, and the gov­ern­ment bod­ies will be enti­tled to deny them accred­i­ta­tion. The bill also intro­duces manda­to­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of those post­ing mate­ri­als in all online resources (not only in online pub­li­ca­tions), includ­ing news boards com­men­ta­tors, and allows for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of block­ing social media.

The new law also bans dis­tri­b­u­tion of for­eign media prod­ucts in Belarus with­out a per­mit, and oblig­es TV chan­nels to include at least 30 per­cent of Belaru­sian (nation­al) prod­ucts into their week­ly broad­cast­ing time.

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion will be enti­tled to request the data need­ed for analy­sis of infor­ma­tion post­ed on an online resource, and the data iden­ti­fy­ing its own­er, from own­ers of online resources and Inter­net ser­vice providers.

Amendments to Media Law Likely to Be Passed in June DOCUMENT

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