Russia will introduce administrative responsibility for mentioning terrorist organizations without adding that they are banned or liquidated. Despite the fact that for several years now the media have been making such reservations on the recommendation of Roskomnadzor, no punishment has been introduced for the absence of this clarification. As Izvestia found out, the State Duma plans to adopt a bill that will fill this gap in April.
We are talking about amending article 13.15 of the Administrative Code, the authors of which were the head of the State Duma committee on information policy, information technology and communications, Alexander Khinshtein, and deputy chairman of the committee, Sergei Boyarsky. For non-compliance with the law, citizens will be punished with a fine from 2 to 2.5 thousand rubles, officials – from 4 to 5 thousand, legal entities – from 40 to 59 thousand rubles, in all cases the confiscation of the subject of the offense is envisaged.
As the authors explained to Izvestia, the Code of Administrative Offenses currently provides for responsibility for disseminating information about organizations from the list of the Ministry of Justice, recognized by the court as extremist, without indicating that they have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited. At the same time, the FSB maintains a single list of organizations, including foreign and international ones, recognized by the court as terrorist. However, when distributing information about them, an indication that they have been liquidated or their activity is prohibited is optional.
Since 2015, Roskomnadzor has strongly recommended in media materials to immediately identify the context and write about terrorist organizations “banned on the territory of the Russian Federation”. As representatives of the department later explained, the media cannot mention the name of the organization, which is included in the list of extremist organizations by the Ministry of Justice, without referring to the fact that its activities are prohibited in Russia, but structures from the FSB list do not fall under this law. At the same time, Roskomnadzor equates terrorist and extremist organizations. Back in 2016, the service reported a gap in legislation to higher authorities.
More details – in the exclusive material of Izvestia:
Write and specify: the State Duma is filling the gap in the laws on the dissemination of information