Senators propose to ban the publication of almost any information of a military nature
[ad_1]
Members of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building have developed a package of amendments establishing responsibility for publishing information about the location and work of the Russian military, as well as about any “arrivals” on the territory of the Russian Federation. Citizens-violators will face up to 50 thousand rubles. fine, and repeat offenders – up to three years in prison. The only exception will be information that is disseminated by official authorities or published by the media in accordance with the established military procedure.
“Kommersant” got acquainted with the “working versions” of three bills that are planned to be submitted to the State Duma closer to its autumn session. One of them provides for a change in federal laws on the media and on the protection of information: in the first case, the list of prohibitions on the abuse of freedom of the mass media will be expanded, in the second, the list of data to be blocked at the request of the Prosecutor General. Any information, including photos and videos, that will contain data on the deployment and redeployment of the armed forces of the Russian Federation or “other troops, military formations and bodies”, about military infrastructure and “critical facilities”, if this information allows you to establish their location, assess the fact of their defeat and the nature of the damage; about the “place of shelling or shelling” on the territory of the Russian Federation; on the movement and use of weapons and ammunition, air defense, UAVs and other special equipment that makes it possible to identify their type, location, launch and flight path – except for information “permitted for open publication”.
Cases are taken out of brackets when such information is published by state bodies endowed with appropriate powers, “brought to them by their official representatives” or disseminated by the media in the “established order”.
The head of the constitutional committee, Andrei Klishas, explained to Kommersant that the military would establish this order.
Two other bills provide for administrative and criminal liability for violation of the imposed bans. Thus, the Code of Administrative Offenses will be supplemented with an article on “dissemination of information that allows identifying the location of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, military formations, military, humanitarian, strategic infrastructure” (Article 20.3.5). Such actions will entail the imposition of a fine in the amount of 30 thousand to 50 thousand rubles. for individuals, from 100 thousand to 200 thousand rubles. for officials and from 300 thousand to 500 thousand rubles. to legal entities.
And the Criminal Code will have an article with a similar title (Article 283.3), which will provide for up to three years in prison for persons who have already received “administrative” and again violated the ban within a year. The text stipulates that liability will be imposed for the publication of prohibited information “during the period of mobilization or martial law, in wartime or in conditions of armed conflict or combat operations.”
Under the conditions of the special operation on the territory of Ukraine, information published by the media and citizens about “arrivals” and “departures” becomes “a source of information for determining the enemy’s combat strategy,” the explanatory note says.
For example, the launch of a rocket, captured on video, “by mathematical calculation” allows the APU to determine the location of the launcher. And the photos and videos of “the places where the projectile hit on the territory of the Russian Federation” give the enemy the opportunity to adjust the coordinates of the conduct of hostilities, the document specifies.
A draft law similar in meaning has been developed since the beginning of the year in the State Council of Crimea (see “Kommersant” dated August 15). They propose to introduce responsibility for the dissemination of information about military installations in territories with a special legal regime (counter-terrorist operation, martial law, maximum or medium response levels), but limit it to “administration”. At the same time, the fine for individuals is proposed a little less – from 10 thousand to 30 thousand rubles. Sergei Trofimov, Chairman of the Crimean State Council Committee on Legislation, told Kommersant earlier that the document was approved by the Council of Legislators and is being prepared for submission to the State Duma in the autumn session. Andrei Klishas, for his part, did not comment on the initiative of the Crimeans to Kommersant, explaining that he was not familiar with the text of their bill. And Mr. Trofimov suggested that the documents could complement each other. True, State Duma deputies usually prefer the bills of their federal counterparts.
It should be noted that similar norms have been in force in Ukraine for almost a year and a half.
Back in March 2022, a law was adopted that severely restricts the dissemination of information about the movement of the military, the consequences of shelling, the work of air defense, and so on. And the Security Service of Ukraine regularly reports on the detention of citizens who publish such photos and videos on social networks.
According to lawyer Oleg Eliseev, if the bills are adopted in the proposed version, the publication of any information about the military, about a special operation or about shells hit will be banned, even if this happens at the level of discussion of local events. At the same time, the ban does not apply to personal correspondence, he adds. However, laws in this form are unlikely to be adopted, the expert believes, since at the moment there is no “established procedure” for publishing information. It can be assumed that the authors see some special mechanism for transferring this information to the media, where information should be sent centrally, but this is contrary to the provisions of the media law, the lawyer recalls.
The “established procedure” for receiving and disseminating information can only be provided for by the legislator, insists Mikhail Fedotov, ex-chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Council and author of the law on the media: under the Constitution, the rights and freedoms of citizens can be limited exclusively by federal law. In fact, he adds, there is a simple way to solve the problem – the introduction of military censorship, which is already provided for by the law on martial law.
[ad_2]
Source link
