Agency reward

The State Duma introduced a bill on millions of fines for violation of the media law - "foreign agents". The document is published in the basis of the legislative initiatives of the lower house.

The authors of the bill were the chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov and the head of the similar committee of the Federation Council Andrei Klishas.

As noted in the explanatory note, there is currently no administrative liability for violation of the duties assigned to the media recognized by the “foreign agent”. "In this regard, it is proposed to supplement Chapter 19 of the Code of Administrative Offenses with the new article 19.34.1" Violation of the procedure for a foreign media that performs the functions of a foreign agent, and (or) the Russian legal entity established by him, performing the functions of a foreign agent, "the document says.

For the first violation of the law, a fine of 10 thousand rubles is provided for individuals up to 500 thousand for legal. Repeated violation during the year is proposed to be punished with a fine of 50 thousand rubles for individuals up to a million rubles for legal. Each subsequent violation will be considered "gross" and punished with a fine of 100 thousand rubles or arrest up to 15 days for individuals. For officials, a fine of 200 thousand rubles is provided, for legal - 5 million rubles.

The maximum sanction provided for by the current Article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the procedure for a non -profit organization performing the functions of a foreign agent) is 300 thousand rubles for officials and 500 thousand for legal.

On November 15, amendments to the law on the media, which allows to equate foreign media with “foreign agents”, were adopted by the State Duma as the answer to the United States to measures regarding Russia Today and Sputnik - Russian propaganda media operating in this country. The document was adopted urgently - the day after entering the lower ward. On November 22, the law was approved by the Federation Council , and on November 25, Vladimir Putin signed .

On November 16, the Ministry of Justice was notified by the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus. Realities, Crimea. Realii, Siberia. Realii, Idel. Reali, Azatliq Radiosi, the Current time and the Factograph project about the possible inclusion in the media list of foreign agents.