Putin signed the law on "propaganda of separatism"

Vladimir Putin signed the law on punishments for public calls to violate the territorial integrity of the country. The corresponding document was published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday. Article 280.1 was added to the Criminal Code, which provides for up to five years in prison.

Calls to the department of territories will be punished with a fine of up to 300 thousand rubles, obligatory work for up to 300 hours or deprivation of liberty for up to three years. If these calls were made on the media or the Internet, the sentence will be up to five years in prison or up to 480 hours of compulsory work.

The article of the Criminal Code "Public calls for the implementation of actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation" will begin to operate on May 9, 2014. Cases under the new article are attributed to the defense of the TFR.

On December 9, a group of communists, headed by Gennady Zyuganov, introduced the bill on December 9. On December 17, the bill passed the first reading, and three days later was adopted immediately in the second and third readings.

Zyuganov spoke with the initiative of criminal prosecution for calls for the dismemberment of Russia on October 19 . "We - our deputies - must make a proposal: that even verbal calls for the separation of a single and indivisible Russia will be punishable by imprisonment," he said at the plenum of the Central Committee of the party. Zyuganov did not explain what his initiative is connected with. At the same time, he expressed confidence that citizens of the country would support the idea.

In early November, unicorn Anton Romanov, Evgeny Fedorov and Directorate Mikhail Emelyanov introduced another bill to the State Duma, which introduces much more stringent punishments for the same actions. So, the proposed Articles 282.3 (propaganda of separatism) and 282.4 (planning, preparation, call for undermining or encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of the Russian Federation) provide for up to 20 years of the colony. Article 280 (public calls for extremism) and 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization of activities of an extremist organization) is also significantly tightened. The future fate of this bill was not reported.