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In 2015, the Ministry of Information restricted access to 40 websites, says Lilija Ananič in the reply to BAJ request sent on November 5.

The expert commission of the Brest region held an assessment of three books authored by Zianon Pazniak and claimed that two of them contained signs of extremism; the commission applied to the Maskouski district court of Brest to recognize the books extremist and to ban them.

  On the evening November 24, the police drew up administrative reports against some journalists who covered an action of protest in Minsk.

  On the evening November 24, the police drew up administrative reports against some journalists who covered an action of protest in Minsk.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus Miklós Haraszti presented the report on freedom of expression in Belarus to the UN General Assembly. Independence of the media in Belarus is impossible because of the permit-based nature of registration and arbitrary rules for withdrawal of licenses, says the report. The main conclusions of the report are as follows: there is no pluralism of mass media; Belarus is the only country in Europe without private all-national broadcasters; the government is a direct regulator for all types of mass media; critical expression and investigations are obstructed through criminalization of contents regarded as “harmful for the state”, with the help of the articles on criminal defamation and insult of public officials, in particular, of the president.