The negative attitude of Belarusian authorities to free distribution of information is not a secret. The state tries to control mass media and demands from them to comply to the standards, invented by the officials. The new department that will control electronic mass media, was established at the Ministry of Justice. At the same time, an internet forum in Hrodna was closed because its users criticized the authorities.(22-MAR-2005)
The new department that will deal with control of the activity of electonic mass media, has been established at the Ministry of Information. The media to be controlled include FM radio stations, regional TV and radio complainies. The chair of the board is the vice-minister of information Siarhei Bulatski. The first step of the new board of electronic mass media became the list of the authors and singers which was composed in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice. According to the authors of the list the persons who were included in it could be considered Belarusians. Some of them consider the Russian Federation to be their homeland. It concerns the bands Bi-2 and Nochnye Snaipery (Night Snipers) and such singers as Yury Antonov, Aliona Sviridova and Igor Korneliuk. The composer Eduard Khanok directly states that he doesn’t want to have any relation to Belarus.
We should remind that recently the Ministry of Information has issued warnings to a number of FM radio stations for non-execution of the order for 75% of Belarusian music in ether. This problem can be solved by adding more Russian musicians to “Belarusians”.
According to Belarusian Association of Journalists, forum.grodno.by internet forum was closed in Hrodna. This forum was situated at the web-site of Hrodna branch of the state monopolist on electronic communications Beltelekam. This forum was very popular – more than 2 000 individual users entered it everyday. The forum pages were destroyed. The administration of Beltelekam proposed Aliaksei Rads, director of Hrodna Forum department, to retire from work. Aliaksei Rads thinks that the reason for this “proposal” is that critical opinions about the present regime appeared at the forum entry that was devoted to the repeated election at Hrodna central election circuit #52. The forum also had such parts as “About Europe and the Republic of Belarus”, “Our president. Who is he?”, “About propaganda as it is”, “Iron curtain”, etc.
According to Valery Shymak, the head of the service workshop of the Beltelekam branch, the mentioned forum was closed temporary, because its moderator suddenly retired. He said that about a thousand of topics were elaborated at the forum and the function of moderator was to invent topics, watch the development of the discussion and remove four-letter words — that’s why the forum couldn’t function without moderator.
