Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that increases censorship of the press operating in the country, just hours after the text was unanimously approved by the Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature. Under the pretext of inhibiting the spread of fake news about the armed forces or about the invasion of Ukraine, the new law, in practice, obliges vehicles to report the government’s version of the war, under penalty of up to 15 years in prison. .
Calling the action in the neighboring country a “war”, by the way, can be considered disinformation by the Russian government. Since the 26th, Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulatory agency, has demanded that the expression “special military operation” be used to refer to the conflict. Posts that “discredit” the Russian armed forces, ask for sanctions from other countries on Russia or even criticize the action of the military in Ukraine are also prohibited.
Duma President Vyacheslav Volodin said that under the new law, “those who lie and make statements that discredit our armed forces will be forced to suffer very severe punishments.”
According to The Moscow Times, people who use their position to spread information that the government deems false can face five to ten years in prison. If the information considered false has “serious consequences” the punishment can be increased to up to 15 years.
While the wording of the new law offers few details about what could be classified as prohibited content, the measure was greeted by journalists as a threat to criminalize anyone who does not align with the government’s official position.
In a note attached to the new law, the Russian parliament cited examples of situations that could be punished with up to 15 years in prison. According to the document, Ukrainian media were allegedly using images of the devastation in the Donbass region between 2014 and 2015 and attributing them as crimes perpetrated by the Russian military to “create a negative global image of Russia as a ‘bloody aggressor’ and provoke panic in society. ”.
On Thursday (3), pressure from the Russian government had already led to the closure of several independent outlets, such as radio station Echo of Moscow and television channel TV Dojd. The following day, the government announced that it would block access to vehicles with a Russian version and that are produced outside the country, such as Voice of America, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Meduza.
It was unclear whether the law would apply to journalists who work in Russia but who produce content in a language other than their local language. Shortly after the approval of the proposal by the Duma, however, the British broadcaster BBC, the Americans CNN and Bloomberg and the Canadian CBC announced the temporary suspension of the work of their journalists in the country.
“The safety of our workers is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs,” BBC Director-General Tim Davie said in a statement. The British public company highlighted, however, that it will continue to offer its international information service in Russian produced by employees established in other countries.
“The change in the penal code, which seems designed to make any independent reporter a criminal by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism within the country,” said John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg.
Other independent Russian-based media outlets have decided to suspend work, reports The New York Times. The Znak news agency took its website offline and released a statement in which it says: “We are suspending our operations due to the large number of new restrictions on the operation of media outlets in Russia.”
Novaya Gazeta, the country’s largest independent newspaper, said it would delete all its content about the war in Ukraine to stay on the air. The Village magazine, which moved its operations from Russia to Poland this week, retroactively edited its contents to replace any mention of the word “war” with “special military operation.”
Russia also blocks Facebook and Twitter
Also on Friday, Roskomnadzor blocked the public’s access to Facebook and Twitter. The agency had already partially restricted and reduced access to social media for the dissemination of what it considered “false information” about the actions of Russian forces on Ukrainian territory.
Meta, the company responsible for Facebook, reportedly restricted the official accounts of four Russian media outlets: the military television channel “Zvezda”, the official news agency “RIA Novosti”, the portal “Lenta” and the newspaper “Gazeta”. .ru”. The Russian Attorney General’s Office found that the US technology company’s decision violated the right of citizens to “freely access, receive, transmit, produce and disseminate information in a lawful manner”, as provided for in Article 29 of the Russian Constitution.
The regulatory agent even asked Meta that the restrictions be lifted, but the company reportedly ignored the request. On Friday, shortly after blocking Facebook in Russia, the body also suspended access to Twitter.
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