FILE - Vyacheslav Volodin attends a session at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, on Oct. 18, 2023. A senior lawmaker says Russia's parliament will consider a law allowing for the confiscation of money and property from those deemed to spread “deliberately false information†about Moscow's military actions. Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house, said the measure would apply to those calling for “extremist activities†or the introduction of sanctions against Russia as well as those “discrediting†the armed forces, a criminal offense under a law adopted after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. (The State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament via AP, File)
FILE - Vyacheslav Volodin attends a session at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, on Oct. 18, 2023. A senior lawmaker says Russia's parliament will consider a law allowing for the confiscation of money and property from those deemed to spread “deliberately false information†about Moscow's military actions. Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house, said the measure would apply to those calling for “extremist activities†or the introduction of sanctions against Russia as well as those “discrediting†the armed forces, a criminal offense under a law adopted after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. (The State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament via AP, File)
Russia’s parliament will consider a law allowing for the confiscation of money, valuables, and other property from those deemed to spread “deliberately false information†about Moscow’s military actions, a senior lawmaker said Saturday.
Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, wrote in a Telegram update that the measure would apply to those publicly inciting “extremist activities†or calling for the introduction of sanctions against Russia, as well as those “discrediting†the armed forces, a criminal offense under a law adopted as part of Moscow's crackdown on dissent after it in February 2022.
“Everyone who tries to destroy Russia, betrays it, must suffer the deserved punishment and compensate for the damage inflicted on the country, at the cost of their property,†Volodin said. He added that under the law, those found guilty of “discrediting†the army also face being stripped of any honorary titles.
Volodin said the bill would be brought to the Duma, Russia’s lower parliamentary chamber, on Monday.
The existing law against “discrediting†the Russian military, which covers offenses such as “justifying terrorism†and spreading “fake news†about the armed forces, is regularly of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Multiple activists, bloggers and ordinary Russians have received long jail terms.
Russian state media reported last month that one of the country’s bestselling novelists, known under the pen name Boris Akunin, had been and added to the Russian register of “extremists and terrorists.†Another popular writer, Dmitry Glukhovsky, was handed an in absentia after a Moscow court found him guilty in August of deliberately spreading false information about Russia’s armed forces.
In November, a court in St. Petersburg , an artist and musician, for seven years for swapping supermarket price tags with antiwar messages. The month before, Russian blogger Aleksandr Nozdrinov received a 8.5-year term for posting photos of destroyed buildings in Kyiv, along with a caption implying that Russian troops were responsible.
