Internet cafes under Big Brother’s eye in Belarus
The resolution also bans the visitors of Internet cafes to disseminate information prohibited by law and to use software, judged by the national experts’ commission as the promotion of violence, cruelty and pornography. This sounds like an intimidation, indeed.
To get a better insight into the matter, we have turned to Yury Ziser, the chief executive of Tut.by web portal, who said that most of the provisions had already been effective before the resolution came out.
“This regulation was being developed for several years, with some of its provisions already reflected in this way or another in the other legal documents. So, when the resolution has finally been approved, we have seen nothing new. Partially, part of the provisions is arbitrary.
For instance, it is hard to understand why customers need to keep their queues.
Another blank shot is that Internet café visitors are banned from striking hacking attacks; but this has always been banned anyway,” he said.
Previously, the operation of computer clubs and Internet cafes was regulated by the local authorities. And, they seemed to be doing their job well.
For example, out of 400 computer clubs and Internet cafes that initially started up in Minsk, only several dozens have survived by today. The surfing of web sites has been under control for a long time, too.
“In fact, we used to be approached by security agencies before. They would ask us for information, and we would give them this information. As a rule, they would not elaborate for the sake of investigation. Their requests were official. I don’t really see any difference now that the resolution has been put into effect and previously.
If Internet centers did not save this information, security agencies would go straight to Internet providers and get the information there. In fact, that’s exactly what they used to do. I know for sure that many providers used to give and continue giving this information up,” said Vital Bujnou, who runs the Ploschadka Internet center in downtown Minsk.
The fresh resolution has already faced criticism from the international media freedom watchdogs. The Paris-based Reporters without Borders noted that the Belarus authorities wanted to exert controls over the visits by Belarusian citizens to the opposition web sites and the web-based independent news sources.
The European Radio for Belarus asked an Internet café’s owner, who wished to remain anonymous, whether there was a threat of the total control.
“There is a trend towards the total control in this document, but it has not been somewhat complete. The government had attempted to introduce a temporary measure, requiring all the visitors to register in a special log. It was rather a desire of the government, not a legal regulation.
Many computer clubs introduced this requirement, because they did not want to quarrel with the authorities. However, this measure would not settle down, because customers were absolutely against it. Not because they were violating anything, but because they did not feel comfortable. These measures are definitely not in place either in the West or in Moscow, for sure.
This measure could definitely be a disaster, but it has not been introduced. Therefore, if customers are not registered, where is the total control, then? In this case, there are signs of a total control, but it is not there in reality,” our source said.
How else can Internet surfing be controlled? According to a director of the Minsk-based Internet center, large Internet cafes have filters, which prevent customers from entering the banned sites. The sites get into the banned lists by a computer, which monitors and picks “undesirable” addresses.
The list of the banned sites comprises 600 printed pages and mainly includes pornographic and terrorist resources.
The practice appears to have gone ahead of laws.
Photo by www.opankey.com
