Bosnian Serb MPs Quit 'Net Censorship' Debate

The assembly of Bosnia's mainly Serbian entity began discussing disputed changes to the law on public peace and order on Tuesday despite a walkout by opposition parties, which accused the government of trying to create a "totalitarian regime".

The controversy centres on plans to extend the penalties for breaking public peace and order to include the Internet, which critics have called an attempt to censor the net and social networks.

Deputies quit the session before Republika Srpska Interior Minister Dragan Lukac spoke, saying the changes to the law would lead to penalties only if communications on the Internet clearly involved a criminal offence.

MPs and critics said they were not reassured. "The government in Republika Srpska has a fear of civic freedom," Dragan Cavic, head of the People's Democratic Movement, NDP, one of the opposition MPs who left the chamber, said.

Sinisa Vukelic, head of the Journalists' Club in Banja Luka, said that if the government did not withdraw the law from parliamentary procedure, journalists would boycott coverage of the government's work.

International rights organizations have voiced criticism of the proposed change. Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said it had sent a letter to the speaker of Republika Srpska Assembly, asking for the changes to be scrapped.

"The extremely broad and vaguely phrased prohibitions under this law appear to have no other purpose than to restrict online speech," Lydia Gall, Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said.

"The National Assembly should reject this problematic law," Gall added.

Despite the criticism, the ruling coalition in the assembly, led by the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, under...