Crush curve

The law on the media - "foreign agents" needs to be improved. This was stated by President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with the leadership of the chambers of the Federal Assembly, the Kremlin press service reports .

"We were not gathering, we do not do this, do not limit the freedom of citizens. Of course, this law needs to be improved. But we just need to make it aimed at solving the problem for which it was created, namely: to exclude all interference in our internal, domestic political life, directly, or through dummies, financing their activities within the country. Actually, there was all the meaning there. And if there is somewhere there. Roughness, unhealthy, you also need to look at this carefully, ”Putin said.

At the same time, the president noted that in the USA the regulation of foreign agents is "much more stringent than that which is proposed in our law." Putin also demanded to analyze foreign activities on the Internet during the election campaign in Russia.

"In no case do we need to narrow the space of freedom on the Internet, but we must carefully see how some companies work on the Internet, on social networks, how widely involved in our domestic political life. Including it will be necessary to carefully analyze how they behave, will behave during the presidential election campaign," Putin said.

The Law on Media - “Foreign Agents” was in a hurry in mid -November in response to Washington’s measures against RT and Sputnik - Russian propaganda media operating in the United States. On November 25, Putin signed the law .

On December 5, the Ministry of Justice announced the first nine media agents . These are “Voice of America”, “Radio Liberty” and seven separate projects of the latter: “Present”, “Factograph”, “Crimea. Realities”, “Caucasus. Realia”, “Siberia. Realities”, “Idel. Real” and azatlıq radiosı.

On December 19, the Vice-Speaker of the State Duma Uneneros Peter Tolstoy, the chairman of the Duma Committee on Information Policy, reference Leonid Levin and Members of the Council of People's Commissars Andrei Klishas and Lyudmila Bokov introduced a bill involving the recognition of media-agents of individuals .

The bill also introduces a number of amendments to the laws on the media and information clarifying the provisions of the November law on the media “agents”. In particular, the media law is supplemented by Article 25.1, which establishes that "agents" are obliged to establish a Russian legal entity within a month from the moment of recognition. Any publications of "agents" are obliged to accompany the same indication. Article 27 of the Media Law is added to the norm obliging to report on the status of "agent" and in the weekend of publications. The law on information, in particular, is proposed to include Article 10.6, which, among other things, obliges the media that are not "agents", when reprinting the publications of "agents" to supply these materials with appropriate notes. Article 15.9 is also included in the law. In particular, she establishes that the “agents”, whom the court announced guilty of violation of the procedure, is sent a notification with a request from 15 days to eliminate the violation. If the editors ignore this requirement, the media website must be blocked.

On December 21, the Ministry of Justice published a draft order clarifying the provisions of the Law on the Media "foreign agents". According to the document, any media financed by foreign structures , as well as Russian organizations receiving money from foreign sources, can be recognized as such. "Agents" will be obliged to provide the Ministry of Justice with information about the leadership, expenses report and audit report on the results of the year. In the draft order of the Ministry of Justice, it is noted that such media will be obliged to accompany their materials with an indication that they are published or widespread by the "foreigner".