CPJ сondemns seizure of domain names from independent media in Belarus

The Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists (CPJ) strong­ly con­demned the seizure of domain names with the .by exten­sion from inde­pen­dent media in Belarus and request­ed com­ment from the Pres­i­den­tial Exec­u­tive and Ana­lyt­i­cal Cen­ter and ICANN.

CPJ issued a state­ment strong­ly con­demn­ing the Belaru­sian author­i­ties’ deci­sion to seize domain names of inde­pen­dent media out­lets and call­ing for an end to the use of extrem­ism leg­is­la­tion as a tool of cen­sor­ship.

“Rob­bing inde­pen­dent media out­lets of their domain names – and the Belaru­sian pub­lic of impor­tant infor­ma­tion – is a ruth­less form of cen­sor­ship,” said Gul­noza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Cen­tral Asia pro­gram coor­di­na­tor. “After jail­ing or forc­ing into exile inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and silenc­ing crit­i­cal media, Belaru­sian author­i­ties are try­ing to sti­fle the free flow of infor­ma­tion on the inter­net by weaponiz­ing their shame­ful extrem­ism leg­is­la­tion.”

CPJ notes that Belarus is expe­ri­enc­ing an unprece­dent­ed crack­down on the media. As of April 22, 2024, at least 20 news sites were dis­play­ing a mes­sage that the resource was unavail­able fol­low­ing the EAC order. In 2023, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties can­celed the domain names of three inde­pen­dent media out­lets – ex-press.by, Brest­skaya Gaze­ta and Tut.by, as well as the domain name of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

Reform.by, which is known for its inves­tiga­tive work, and Media-Polesye said they received let­ters from the EAC inform­ing them that their web­sites’ domain names would be can­celed on April 15.

Svi­at­lana Har­da, edi­tor-in-chief of Media-Polesye, told CPJ that the move was “anoth­er blow to the inde­pen­dent media, proof that read­ers are being deprived of their right to receive objec­tive infor­ma­tion.”  She said the num­ber of vis­i­tors to Media-Polesye was only just approach­ing the vol­ume that it had been before author­i­ties blocked the web­site in Sep­tem­ber 2021.

“We almost reached the pre­vi­ous fig­ures and here is a new blow,” she said.

Reform.news edi­tor-in-chief Fio­dar Pauluchen­ka told CPJ that the out­let would have to try to ensure that all of its read­ers knew that it had moved to a new inter­net address.

“What is more impor­tant here is that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of nation­al domain names. There should be a reac­tion to such actions, not only from fel­low jour­nal­ists but also from inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions that man­age the inter­net,” he said, refer­ring to the Inter­net Cor­po­ra­tion for Assigned Names and Num­bers (ICANN), a non­prof­it respon­si­ble for han­dling domain name dis­putes.

Accord­ing to Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy chair­man of the BAJ, media out­lets whose domain name was can­celed were like­ly to see a drop in audi­ence fig­ures because read­ers could not find the old web­sites that they had book­marked, and search engines like Google ranked estab­lished web­sites high­er than new ones.

CPJ’s emails to the Exec­u­tive and Ana­lyt­i­cal Cen­ter and the Inter­net Cor­po­ra­tion for Assigned Names and Num­bers request­ing com­ment did not imme­di­ate­ly receive any respons­es.