The country has drafted a UN convention designed to stop regime change being incited externally through cyberspace.

Developed together by Russia’s Security Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the draft states that “using information technology as a means of aggression and destruction,” and “the mass psychological brainwashing of the population aimed at destabilization of the society and the state,” represent major security threats.

The draft stresses that countries have the right to establish their own rules in their own cyberspace and control it according to their national law. At the same time, the document obliges the states to protect the freedom of speech on the Internet. All the control measures, the officials say, are aimed at maintaining national security.

Once the controversial document leaked to general public, human rights activists around the world immediately dubbed it a violation of people’s right to freedom. Moscow, however, does not agree with such statements.

“Such regulation is not an attempt to muzzle the media, as some Russian partners say,” Ilya Rogachev, head of the Foreign Ministry’s department on new challenges and threats, told reporters. “The international community should find a balance between the right to freedom of information and security interests.”

The officials hope that the convention will be adopted by 2012. Other countries, meanwhile, are working on their own drafts on Internet security.

Source: RT News