Radio and television programmes produced by companies registered in Russia and Belarus are to be banned in Lithuania for as long as these countries are deemed a threat to national security.
Respective amendments to the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public were endorsed by Lithuanian legislators on Thursday with a vote of 78 in favour and four abstentions. The bill will now be discussed by the parliamentary committees.
“Russia’s armed aggression in Ukraine is accompanied by aggressive disinformation, which is being actively pursued both inside and outside the European Union,” Culture Minister Simonas Kairys said when presenting the bill.
According to him, the bill aims to extend the current ban on the retransmission or online distribution of Russian and Belarusian radio and television programmes in Lithuania.
The proposal is to keep the ban in place for as long as Russia and Belarus are identified in the National Security Strategy as posing threats to Lithuania’s national security.
The minister argued that what comes out of Russian and Belarusian television is propaganda and disinformation rather than information.
According to the minister, the Lithuanian authorities have already blocked over 400 websites and more than 300 IP addresses as part of efforts to implement the ban online.
The current ban on retransmitting Russian and Belarusian programmes is set to expire on October 1.
The law also provides for an exception, allowing these programmes to be retransmitted or distributed from EU member countries or states that have ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television, or with permission from the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission.
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