State Duma member reads Kommersant during the sitting of lower house of Russia's parliament.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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State Duma Sanctions Media Shut-Down
The lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, has passed in the first reading the bill on mass media that allows to wind up an edition for intentional dissemination of false information.
The bill’s mastermind is Robert Shlegel, United Russia faction of the State Duma. The drawbacks of the current wording, the MP said when addressing the parliament, is that it spells out the general ban on slander, and when the cases are tried by the courts, no chance for warning the mass media is usually taken into account.
The bill will help victims settle the problem, Shlegel assuared.
“In the mass media, the slander could be found much more often than the extremist materials and is the basic, often absolutely unpunished abuse of freedom,” Shlegel pointed out.
The bill won’t change current procedures for calling to account, said Valery Komarov, who chairs the Information Policy and IT Committee of the State Duma. “The amenability has been applied and will be applied,” the MP said. “It is just the matter of harmonizing the legislation.”
www.kommersant.com
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