"We would like Belarus to be able to independently develop its relations in the information area, without external influence, based on its own national interests". Oleg Makarov, Director of the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research, expressed this opinion in an interview with the Narodnaja Volya newspaper.
Journalists asked whether this means that the Belarusian state will exclude Russian TV channels from the list of basic channels, and instead add Euronews, Polish, Ukrainian or Kazakh channels, for instance.
According to Makarov, no one is considering this yet. Besides, information sovereignty should not affect the right to freedom of receipt and dissemination of information, the official says.
"We don’t see a threat in TV channels. This is not something that needs to be tackled now. And it’s probably not difficult to solve this problem technically – one click and they are gone!", Makarov added.