Lukashenko wants no opposition on the Internet

Belarus president Lukashenko claimed in a recent interview that on the
Internet there was too much opposition to his views. As a response some
groups of the Belarusian Internet community prepared a customized version of
the Internet for their president.

Internet-community “Third Way” prepared a birthday present for Belarusian
acting president A. Lukashenko – the most advanced version of the Internet –
LuNet. The event, “Give Lukashenko his Lunet”, that started on 30 August
2007, was intended to show how dangerous and absurd are Lukashenko’s
demands of control over the Internet in Belarus. Lunet consists of Lundex
search engine, LuTube video service, LuJournal blog service and the most
“honest” portal tut.lu.

“Internet surveillance may concern millions of Belarusians. That’s why we
consider it very important and timely to attract Belarusian and foreign
media, politicians, and community’s attention to the issue. We can’t allow
the last bastion of freedom in Belarus to fall. It’s time to show that even
in virtual world we can demonstrate real solidarity. We mustn’t allow
Belarus to turn into internet-hostile China!” said one of the action
initiators, Pavel Morozov.

A well known Belarusian politician and dissident, “the father of independent
Belarusian state” Zyanon Pozniak, academic Voitovich, sculptor Ales
Shaternik, analytical project “Our Opinion”, informational agency “Belapan”,
office “For democratic Belarus” in Brussels and more than 50 bynet sites as
well as many Belarusian citizens’ initiatives have supported the event (full
list of supporters will be published on fromlu.net).

At the beginning of August 2007, while visiting “Soviet Belarus”
newspaper’s office, Alexander Lukashenko said: “We should stop anarchy
in the Internet”. He said “Belarusian state presence in the internet is
petty. There is no government-owned site with auditory of more than 5.000
users”.

He complained, “If you read what they publish, you’ll see that we have a lot
of opposition – no, not even opposition, hostile states and voices. Our
opposition is their megaphone, that’s a fact”. Belarusian TV followed
Lukashenko and showed a propaganda film discrediting free internet, and also
soviet-propaganda style film “Net Wars”.

Lukashenko’s customised version of Internet(30.08.2007)
http://www.e-belarus.org/news/200708301.html

We present to Lukashenko his LuNet
http://fromlu.net/eng.html

(Thanks to Mikhail Doroshevich – e-belarus.org)