Five -year -old column

The State Duma adopted in the first reading a law providing for a punishment of up to five years in a colony for participating in protests. It is reported by RIA "Novosti".

The document registered in the lower house on March 31 was prepared by the unicorn Andrei Sidyakin and Andrey Krasov and the reference Igor Zotov. As stated in the explanatory note, the bill "is aimed at improving measures to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens from actions caused by unauthorized meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions or pickets." Analyzing the statistics of detentions on protests, deputies note that many citizens systematically participate in such events. To this, according to the authors of the document, it leads to "the failure of timely effective preventive measures."

The bill introduces Article 212.1 to the Criminal Code (repeated violation of the established procedure for the organization or holding a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession or picket). Things under this article are proposed to start against citizens who were brought to administrative responsibility for participating in rallies more than two times in 180 days.

The sanctions under Article 212.1 are the following: a fine of 600 thousand to 1 million rubles or in the amount of the convicted person from two to three years, mandatory work for up to 480 hours, correctional labor for a period of a year to two, forced work up to five years, imprisonment for up to five years.

The bill also makes a number of amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses. Thus, it is proposed to increase the maximum term of administrative arrest from 15 to 30 days, changing it accordingly to part 1 of Article 3.9 of the Code.

Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (disobedience to the legal request of an employee of law enforcement agencies) is added paragraph 6, which sets liability for repeated disobedience to the police (paragraph 1 of article), an FSB officer (paragraph 4) or FSO (paragraph 5). The maximum sanction on this charges should just be arrest for up to 30 days.

It is also proposed to be appointed administrative arrest under Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the procedure for conducting mass events), which now provides only fines and mandatory work. The deputies want to put up for up to 10 days for the organization of a protest rally without submitting a notification (part 2), and up to 15 for the rally that prevented the work of infrastructure (part 3) for holding a rally, for the organizers of a rally that caused harm to human health (part 4), an arrest is provided for up to 20 days, and for the participants (part 6) - up to 15.

In addition, paragraph 6.1 is included in the article, which involves up to 15 days of arrest for the rally participants who interfered with the infrastructure, and paragraph 8, which provides up to 30 days of arrest in case of re -charge of violation of the rules of the shares.

Similar changes are made to Article 20.2.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (organization of mass simultaneous stay or movement of citizens in public places).

Additional rights are received by security forces. Part 2 of Article 16 of the Law "On Police" makes adjustments that allow law enforcement officers to cordon and block objects not only for suppression, but also for the prevention of riots and other actions fraught with negative consequences.

Finally, the norms of the law "On meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions and pickets" are being reviewed. In particular, to reporters illuminating protest promotions, deputies prescribe "to have a clearly visible distinctive sign of the representative of the media."