Belarus to ban access to foreign web sites

The law, No. 317-3 of November 25, 2011, on Amendments to the Code of Administrative Violations and the Procedural Code of the Republic of Belarus, imposes restrictions on visiting or using foreign websites by Belarusian citizens and residents.

Under the new law initiated by the authoritarian head of state Aleksander Lukashenko, the violation will be recognized as a misdemeanor and punishable by fines of varied amounts.

In effect, customers buying goods from web sites outside of Belarus will be banned. The Belarusian state could try to sue companies, such as Amazon or Ebay, if they transact with customers in the ex-Soviet state.

Owners of internet cafes and private individuals could be fined if they allow others to access foreign web sites.

The law will also enable to state to draw up a list of web sites which will be blocked if they have “pornographic or extremist content”.

The new law comes in the wake of cyber-attacks on opposition web sites. The Charter 97 web site was brought down after attacks in late December.

"Anonymous individuals used a password that Radina believed they got from malware used on an editor's personal computer," said Charter 97's editor-in-chief, Natalya Rodina, who is currently in exile in Lithuania.

Other pro-opposition websites, including Russia-based "Belarusian partisan" and some part of social networking sites, also went offline. (pg)