The Russian parliament handed new laws on Thursday, July seventeenth, that makes it a punishable offense to merely seek for content material deemed “extremist.” Within the course of, lawmakers criminalized wanting up a few of Pussy Riot’s movies.
The legislation, which can take impact in September, targets individuals who “intentionally looked for knowingly extremist supplies.” The federal government’s justice ministry defines such content material with a operating record of greater than 5,000 entries that features web sites, political slogans, books, art work, and music.
In 2012, a number of Pussy Riot movies have been added to the justice ministry’s record of “extremist” content material, together with performances of their songs “Free the Cobblestones,” “Kropotkin Vodka,” “Demise to Jail, Freedom to Protest,” and “Putin Has Pissed Himself.”
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The high-quality for intentionally looking for this prohibited content material could be as a lot as 5,000 rubles ($64). Moreover, the penalty for promoting digital personal networks (VPNs) that allow entry to such content material is as much as $2,500 for people and as much as $12,800 for firms.
Tellingly, even a few of the Kremlin’s most loyal allies have criticized the laws. As reported by The Washington Publish, Yekaterina Mizulina mentioned the legislation would forestall her group, the League of Secure Web, from monitoring critics of the federal government.
“It seems that beneath the brand new legislation, the League for Secure Web will be unable to switch information on extremist communities to the Ministry of Inner Affairs,” she wrote on Telegram. “They are going to ban us from monitoring extremism.”
