Before finishing its summer session last week, the State Duma passed three laws that experts believe are meant to curb criticism of government in Russia. And it has been announced that the autumn session in parliament will be started with a fourth bill in the same vein.

Last Wednesday, lawmakers sanctioned the blocking of websites featuring content that "could threaten children's lives, health and development." Online outlets such as Yandex, LiveJournal, Google Russia and Wikipedia protested the new law, claiming it was passed in order to censor the Internet.

On Friday, lawmakers passed a bill obliging non-profits that receive funding from abroad to declare themselves "foreign agents" (a Soviet-era tag which meant "spy") and to submit accounting reports twice more often than before.

On the same day, slander was officially criminalized in Russia once more ­ after having been decriminalized on the initiative of then-President Dmitry Medvedev just last year ­ and fines for it increased up to 5 million rubles ($153,000). A recommendation by President Vladimir Putin, who stated that slander should not carry a prison term, was heeded by the lawmakers.

In September, the ruling United Russia party will also propose a bill to increase fines for insults at least tenfold, Pavel Krasheninnikov, the head of the Duma's Committee on Arbitrage, Civil, Criminal and Procedural Legislation, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta last Friday.

Krasheninnikov raised doubts about the decriminalization efforts made by Medvedev, who currently serves as United Russia's chairman in addition to being Prime Minister.

"Since articles on slander and insults were taken out from the criminal code, people no longer seek justice in court," Krasheninnikov said. "They don't believe that fines of 1,000 to 3,000 rubles are severe enough punishment for someone who has insulted them."

Right now fines for insults range between 1,000 rubles ($31) to 5,000 ($153) for individuals, and from 30,000 rubles ($920) to 500,000 rubles ($15,300) for organizations ­ while only an individual can be a complainant in an insult trial.

Communist Vadim Solovyov, the deputy head of the Duma's Committee on Constitutional Legislation, told The Moscow News that the proposed draft suggests expanding the notion of complainant so that it will include organizations.

This can allow United Russia to sue opposition leader Alexei Navalny for coining the "party of crooks and thieves" label, which has become popular shorthand for the party. "If United Russia members consider themselves insulted by the 'party of crooks and thieves' tag, they'll be able to have Navalny prosecuted," Solovyov said.

Andrei Tarasov, vice partner at the Moscow-based Reznik, Gagarin & Partners law firm, told The Moscow News that in this case United Russia would need to prove how this statement affected the party's reputation.

"They could argue that the party's ratings dropped following his statement and, say, in the Vologda Region it polled 5 percent, while before it its ratings stood at 10 percent," Tarasov said. "Navalny's lawyers would need to prove that the ratings fell due to economic reasons, to give an example."

So far, Navalny has been challenged to a duel by one United Russia member from Volgograd, Andrei Popkov, whom Navalny called a "United Russia hog" in one of his posts on LiveJournal.

In April, Popkov traveled to Italy along with 45 other Volgograd officials on what they argued was a business trip to study how Italian hog farms operate, among other things. Later Popkov admitted to a local TV station that they went to Italy on vacation. Should the insults article be returned to Russia's criminal code, Popkov will be able to hold Navalny liable in a criminal trial.

Unconstitutional?

Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, told The Moscow News that there is no need to make insults and slander criminal offenses again. Fedotov expects the Constitutional Court to revise this legislation following appeals from citizens to be charged with insults and slander.

Vadim Solovyov of the Communist Party said that his party will incur significant losses if it ever needs to pay a 5 million ruble fine.

The toughening of the legislation on insults and slander could take its toll on the Russian media. Around 40 journalists used to be convicted of slander and insults annually.

Last July, a journalist of the Listok newspaper in Gorno-Altaisk, Sergei Mikhailov, was fined 200,000 rubles ($6,100) for saying that the Altai Governor, Alexander Berdnikov, is an "alcoholic" in one of his articles.

Solovyov believes that the new legislation will make it possible to qualify any criticism of authorities as an insult. "The bill's wording is very vague, it's unclear who it will be applied to," he said.

The biggest problem, according to Solovyov, is that Russian courts make arbitrary decisions and the prosecuting side often orders expert evaluations of so-called offensive statements that will invariably draw the "right" conclusions for the benefit of the trial.

Solovyov, who is the head of the Communist Party's legal service, once had to defend the party's Tver branch in court on charges of extremism for a leaflet that said: "Down with [Governor] Zelenin." A local linguist submitted two contradictory reports. The first report said that the slogan wasn't extremist, but the second one said that it was.

Keywords: Russia, Media, Internet - Russia, Nonprofits, NGO's, Activists - Russian News - Russia - Johnson's Russia List

Before finishing its summer session last week, the State Duma passed three laws that experts believe are meant to curb criticism of government in Russia. And it has been announced that the autumn session in parliament will be started with a fourth bill in the same vein.

Last Wednesday, lawmakers sanctioned the blocking of websites featuring content that "could threaten children's lives, health and development." Online outlets such as Yandex, LiveJournal, Google Russia and Wikipedia protested the new law, claiming it was passed in order to censor the Internet.

On Friday, lawmakers passed a bill obliging non-profits that receive funding from abroad to declare themselves "foreign agents" (a Soviet-era tag which meant "spy") and to submit accounting reports twice more often than before.

On the same day, slander was officially criminalized in Russia once more ­ after having been decriminalized on the initiative of then-President Dmitry Medvedev just last year ­ and fines for it increased up to 5 million rubles ($153,000). A recommendation by President Vladimir Putin, who stated that slander should not carry a prison term, was heeded by the lawmakers.

In September, the ruling United Russia party will also propose a bill to increase fines for insults at least tenfold, Pavel Krasheninnikov, the head of the Duma's Committee on Arbitrage, Civil, Criminal and Procedural Legislation, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta last Friday.

Krasheninnikov raised doubts about the decriminalization efforts made by Medvedev, who currently serves as United Russia's chairman in addition to being Prime Minister.

"Since articles on slander and insults were taken out from the criminal code, people no longer seek justice in court," Krasheninnikov said. "They don't believe that fines of 1,000 to 3,000 rubles are severe enough punishment for someone who has insulted them."

Right now fines for insults range between 1,000 rubles ($31) to 5,000 ($153) for individuals, and from 30,000 rubles ($920) to 500,000 rubles ($15,300) for organizations ­ while only an individual can be a complainant in an insult trial.

Communist Vadim Solovyov, the deputy head of the Duma's Committee on Constitutional Legislation, told The Moscow News that the proposed draft suggests expanding the notion of complainant so that it will include organizations.

This can allow United Russia to sue opposition leader Alexei Navalny for coining the "party of crooks and thieves" label, which has become popular shorthand for the party. "If United Russia members consider themselves insulted by the 'party of crooks and thieves' tag, they'll be able to have Navalny prosecuted," Solovyov said.

Andrei Tarasov, vice partner at the Moscow-based Reznik, Gagarin & Partners law firm, told The Moscow News that in this case United Russia would need to prove how this statement affected the party's reputation.

"They could argue that the party's ratings dropped following his statement and, say, in the Vologda Region it polled 5 percent, while before it its ratings stood at 10 percent," Tarasov said. "Navalny's lawyers would need to prove that the ratings fell due to economic reasons, to give an example."

So far, Navalny has been challenged to a duel by one United Russia member from Volgograd, Andrei Popkov, whom Navalny called a "United Russia hog" in one of his posts on LiveJournal.

In April, Popkov traveled to Italy along with 45 other Volgograd officials on what they argued was a business trip to study how Italian hog farms operate, among other things. Later Popkov admitted to a local TV station that they went to Italy on vacation. Should the insults article be returned to Russia's criminal code, Popkov will be able to hold Navalny liable in a criminal trial.

Unconstitutional?

Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, told The Moscow News that there is no need to make insults and slander criminal offenses again. Fedotov expects the Constitutional Court to revise this legislation following appeals from citizens to be charged with insults and slander.

Vadim Solovyov of the Communist Party said that his party will incur significant losses if it ever needs to pay a 5 million ruble fine.

The toughening of the legislation on insults and slander could take its toll on the Russian media. Around 40 journalists used to be convicted of slander and insults annually.

Last July, a journalist of the Listok newspaper in Gorno-Altaisk, Sergei Mikhailov, was fined 200,000 rubles ($6,100) for saying that the Altai Governor, Alexander Berdnikov, is an "alcoholic" in one of his articles.

Solovyov believes that the new legislation will make it possible to qualify any criticism of authorities as an insult. "The bill's wording is very vague, it's unclear who it will be applied to," he said.

The biggest problem, according to Solovyov, is that Russian courts make arbitrary decisions and the prosecuting side often orders expert evaluations of so-called offensive statements that will invariably draw the "right" conclusions for the benefit of the trial.

Solovyov, who is the head of the Communist Party's legal service, once had to defend the party's Tver branch in court on charges of extremism for a leaflet that said: "Down with [Governor] Zelenin." A local linguist submitted two contradictory reports. The first report said that the slogan wasn't extremist, but the second one said that it was.