Council Of Europe Does Not Pre-Analyze Ukraine's Information Security Doctrine

The Council of Europe did not preliminarily analyze the Ukrainian Information Security Doctrine that was adopted in late February.

A representative of the Council of Europe's Kyiv office disclosed this to Ukrainian News Agency.

"We conduct such expert analysis only at the request of national partners. Therefore, there is currently no official position on the doctrine. We are interested in it, but we have not analyzed it," the representative said.

He stressed that Ukraine did not ask the Council of Europe to analyze the doctrine.

The Council of Europe performed a legal analysis of the draft concept for the Information Security Doctrine of Ukraine in 2015 and published the analysis on its website.

In its report, the Council of Europe said that some provisions of the concept allowed ambiguous interpretations that could threaten freedom of expression.

The Council of Europe recommended that Ukraine not provide government agencies ambiguous instruments for limiting freedom of speech.

In addition, the Council of Europe said that the document should not include rules providing for participation of the state in creation of media content or undue influence on it through media regulation.

It also said that the provision prohibiting criticism of the authorities should be removed from the document because it would not allow the media to perform its function as the guardian of public interest.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Petro Poroshenko approved the Information Security Doctrine of Ukraine in late February.

The doctrine instructs the Ministry of Information Policy to monitor the mass information media and public Internet resources to identify information that is banned in Ukraine and instructs the Security to monitor domestic and foreign mass information media to identify threats to Ukraine's national security.

Yevhen Zakharov, the board chairman of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, considers the document anti-democratic.

Poroshenko introduced the National Security and Defense Council's decision "On State Cyber-Security Threats and Measures to Neutralize them," which instructs the Cabinet of Ministers to prepare a draft law that provides for blocking of information resources, on February 13.

The Internet Association of Ukraine has described these measures as political censorship.