Against people, not against terrorists

Why are the new bills of Yarova and Ozerov is very bad

On May 13, the State Duma approved in the first reading a package of amendments to the law on countering terrorism, introduced by deputy Irina Yarova and Senator Viktor Ozerov. A package of bills offers many strict standards that can affect ordinary people who have nothing to do with terrorism. Medusa briefly explains what the main disadvantages of the new initiative of the authorities are.

Rigidity

A new package of bills introduces several new types of crimes with serious punishments in the Criminal Code, and for a number of existing articles tightens responsibility. For example, it is proposed to introduce an article on public calls or justification of terrorism on the Internet - with a punishment of up to seven years of imprisonment. The article on “public calls and justification” existed before, but there was no special norm on the use of the Internet in it. To go to jail for a period of up to five years for an inaccurate statement or repost it was possible earlier - according to an extremist orientation articles; Now a new, more stringent norm has appeared for this. In addition, according to some articles, the authorities want to reduce the age of responsibility - from 16 to 14 years.

Uncertainty

The tightening of the norms could be discussed in itself, because the package is declared as anti -terrorist. But in combination with the uncertainty of formulations, these norms can give rise to many abuse. Say, one of the most loud short stories proposes to punish for failure to rejoice about the “reliably known” terrorist orientation crimes. According to what criteria will they decide what was known reliably and what is not? In addition, it is easy to imagine a lot of unreasonable denunciations caused by fear of people before punishment for “non -renewal”. And it is also easy to imagine that some of these denunciations will turn into criminal cases.

Redundancy

Deputies propose to introduce an article on "international terrorism." In fact, there is already such a norm in the Criminal Code - Article 205 “Terrorist Act” applies to any acts of terrorism against Russian citizens in the country and abroad. Why introduce a new norm is incomprehensible.

Employment

Another high -profile proposal: the authors want to create a new category of non -traveling citizens. It will include people with outstanding and unexpressed criminal records according to some “terrorist” articles and in an extremist articles. Extremist orientation is a lot of articles that are used with a large number of abuses . In particular, human rights activists note that these articles are an important instrument of authorities in the fight against political opponents. So many innocent people can encounter a five -year restriction. You may not be imprisoned for the repost of someone else's article on the social network, but they will easily deprive the right to leave. This right is also proposed to deprive those to whom the law enforcement agencies will declare an official warning about the inadmissibility of actions “creating the conditions for the commission” of some types of crimes. Without any trial. It is not clear what actions such a warning can be announced, but for which - no.

Indifference to rights

The authorities want operators of communication to keep almost the entire Internet traffic of users for three years: recording conversations and all the information that people exchange on the network. And issued at the request of the authorities. The only remark that the government made about this idea concerned storage periods - they were offered to reduce them so that the operators had a technical opportunity to fulfill the requirements of the law. A possible violation of the right to the secret of correspondence, it seems, does not bother anyone.

Unreasonableness

The authors of the bill do not bother with explanations of the need for innovations. Are we sure that all these measures - like the deadlines for non -renewal and deprivation of people of the right to leave - will be effective? In explanatory notes to bills, only general words are given; It says, for example, that new measures will “increase the guarantees of the security of the life and health of citizens and counteract any forms of involving them in criminal activity.” There are no intelligible justifications in the notes.