The Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Heck, it is 287 pages long, and many voters have complained that it is difficult to understand. The document was supposed to make the EU function more efficiently and would give the European Union its first full-time president and create a new and powerful foreign policy chief.

How different are we, Belarusians, from the Irish? Would we vote on something we do not understand? How about the referenda by which we amended the constitution and abolished the rule of law in our homeland? Well, not all of us. I believe none of you, guys, voted yes on those referenda, but I am guessing whether our neighbors next door ever questioned the essence of the president’s proposals while deciding where to put the tick on the ballot.

I well remember those first two referenda. Then Lukashenko was da star, da real hustla. No questions asked, our seniors trusted him full-heartedly. But you can’t bullshit the Irish.

But in this case, the Irish erred. The European integration has stumbled again. As you remember, the Lisbon Treaty emerged after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected a European constitution in 2005. It was sort of a roundabout treaty, and I’m sure it is by far not the final effort to move forward. The EU will come up with some way to advance its course. Maybe the next treaty will be shorter and easier to understand, or local politicians will do a better job explaining it to the voters.

Belarus online media are full of dim prognoses of the upcoming vote on the new media law in the Belarusian Parliament. The changes to the Belarusian media law have been prepared since 2002 and can be voted on as soon as next week.

The changes will specifically address what the Belarusian government refers to as the anarchy in the Internet. It is difficult to say what amendments it would include. Belarusian independent media do not have much detail about the draft, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists points out that the new legislature is being hastily pushed through the parliament. Nothing much is being written on its content. Charter97.org reports that the draft law “On Mass Media” does not contain any fundamental changes in this sphere, and it will be considered by the “deputies” of the “chamber of representatives” on June 17.

Why fear then? Well, even if the law is not changed much, it can become a bit more specific where needed and more equivocal where they reckon necessary. Here’s why. If you were a Belarusian regime-serving judge or a prosecutor, with new law enacted, it would be very easy for you to build your case on those ambiguities of the Belarusian law. So if the government wants to put some online journalist behind bars and to intimidate others, or to close down an unwanted web site, the new law will most probably facilitate the procedure.

Here’s what the authorities have in mind but kind of not too sure how to do it. The first deputy Minister of Information Liliya Ananich recently noted that something should be done about the problem of “misinformation streams” coming from foreign web sites. Their aim, said Ananich, is to “influence the situation in Belarus destructively.”

“However, there is experience of China, where access to these websites at their territory was blocked,” L. Ananich said during a round table discussion, as reported by Charter97.org.

Well, quite an approach to bully us, isn’t it?

Now here is a question to us, journalists, – are we ready for guerilla fighting? How shall we go about the possible Internet filtering techniques? How shall we make our online media more anonymous and multi-faceted so that none of us gets into serious trouble because of our job?

Maybe we need to think more about applying Web 2.0 principles to our web sites. That is to make our media more interactive, less formulaic, and less reminding of a traditional media structure. I guess I’ll explicate these points in my upcoming posts. But my message for now is never fear and be prepared. We shall prevail

Hello fellas! It’s been a very long time since I last posted here, but maybe it’s time to give this blog a new life. Please, let me know what you think.

For some reason, I feel nostalgic for the times when I wrote most of my blog entries in English. Now that I am actively working as an editor of a Belarusian online newspaper westki.info I feel sad I cannot devote enough time to writing texts in languages other than Belarusian or rarely Russian. As a journalist and as a citizen of Belarus I feel obliged to persevere as hard as I can to bring about the change in my home country. That is what I need to focus on. Heh, I repeat this mantra to myself But I also see how little is being written about Belarus in English.

There was a guy whom I never met in real life. We met online, and he motivated me to blog about Belarus in English. His name is Uladzimer Katkouski. Online he used a nickname Rydel23 or Br23. He passed away on May 25 last year after being one year in comma. Uladzimer died at the age of 30. In 2005, he survived a terrible car crash in Prague where he worked as a web-editor of the Belarusian Service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. He never made it out of that comma.

Br23 was one of the best known bloggers in Belarus and one of few who regularly posted in English. When he was in comma, I posted in English quite a lot on my Belarus-American blog. After I graduated and came back to Europe I refocused on the local issues and switched back to Belarusian. But from what I’ seeing, there are even fewer bloggers who raise Belarusian topics in English. Now that we have launched this new English-language project, vilniusblogs.com, I promise to contribute some Belarus-related topics to it.

How is it relevant to the mission of this blog? Just as I wrote in my previous blog post I reckon Belarus and Lithuania to be the closest states ever. And what I would like to achieve by raising Belarus-related topics on this blog is to start a friendly and intelligent discussion between Lithuanians and Belarusians about our history, present and future. Anyone interested is very welcome to join us here!

Originally, I posted this on Vilniusblogs.com, but I am thinking more and more of resurrecting this blog as a good platform for raising Belarus-related issues.