The lower house of parliament (Duma) unanimously adopted an amendment which provides for penalties of up to 15 years in prison for the dissemination of information aimed at “discrediting” the armed forces.
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Moscow tightens the screw. Russia has introduced heavy criminal penalties for the distribution of“false information about the army”, Friday, March 4, the latest illustration of the internal turn of the screw that accompanies the invasion of Ukraine. The Lower House of Parliament (Duma) unanimously adopted an amendment which provides for various penalties of up to fifteen years in prison for the dissemination of information aimed at “discredit” the armed forces.
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An amendment also provides for penalties for “calls to impose sanctions on Russia”, facing Western retaliatory measures for its invasion of Ukraine. These texts, which apply to both the media and individuals, must be approved by the upper house on Friday. They allow the authorities to strengthen their arsenal in the information war they are waging in parallel with the war in Ukraine.
In order to control the narrative of the war transmitted to the Russian population, the authorities also increased the pressure on the few independent media which had managed to work in recent years despite a hostile climate. The media regulator Roskomnadzor has thus announced that it has restricted access to the sites of the Russian-language editions of the BBC and the German international radio and television station Deutsche Welle (DW), the independent site Meduza and Radio Svoboda, the Russian branch of RFE/RL. .
The day before, the emblematic radio station Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) had announced its dissolution and the independent television channel Dojd the suspension of its activity, after the blocking of their sites.
In addition, according to the NGO OVD-Info, more than 8,000 people have been arrested in Russia for having demonstrated, in particular in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, against the invasion of Ukraine since February 24, the day it was launched. .