MINSK (AFP) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has issued a decree to tighten state control over the Internet in the former Soviet republic, the Nasha Niva independent newspaper said Wednesday.
The draft "decree on protecting vitally important interests of the individual, society and the state," would set up a presidential "operative and analytical centre" to regulate the Internet, the paper said.
The centre would control registration of addresses in the national domain and restrict information on the Internet, which has become the only forum for opposition debate amid state control of almost all media.
The decree would also force Internet providers to hand over data on their users on requests from police, prosecutors, courts and tax officials. Under Belarussian law, a presidential decree only requires Lukashenko's signature to come into force.
Previously, Internet providers in Belarus had complained that the state-owned telecoms monopoly cut off access to independent web sites during elections and referendums. The administrator of the most popular opposition website, Charter97.org, Natalya Radina, told AFP she believed the decree had been drawn up in preparation for the presidential elections, planned for 2011.
"The authorities are afraid of the Internet, because today the Internet is the only source of truthful information about what is happening in the country," Radina said. The decree would allow officials "to block any sites, to identify and persecute journalists who work with Internet publications," she said. "There will be very many ways to put pressure on the independent Internet sector."
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