A number of bills restricting the freedom of assembly were introduced to the State Duma

Dmitry Vyatkin, deputy of the State Duma from United Russia, submitted two bills limiting public events and the work of journalists on them. The bills are published on the State Duma website.

So, according to one of the initiatives of the deputy of November 23, it is planned to introduce part 6.2 to article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the established procedure for organizing or conducting a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession or picket), which will provide a fine for wearing during the rally of the distinguishing sign of the media with a person who does not have rights to this.

“This is a very dangerous tool for restricting information about protest promotions and about violations of the rights of participants,” says Denis Shadov, an analyst and lawyer of the ATS-info. -

Suppose this initiative will become a law. In this case, police officers will be able to detain any journalist, deliver him or her to the police department, and within three hours to find out whether there was the right to wear an icon of the media or not. And even if the journalist manages to convince the police of the lawfulness of his actions, then return the lost time, stop fear of such detention the next time it will hardly be possible. Such a tool has a large cooling effect - journalists will once again think whether it is necessary to cover public events at all, if it is possible to be brought to administrative responsibility. And in the case of three prosecutions to administrative responsibility under this particular article of the Code of Administrative Offenses, domestic legislation already provides for the possibility of criminal liability with a period of up to 5 years (Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) ”.

In addition, Uneneros submitted another bill to the consideration, "strengthening the responsibility for violations in the preparation and conduct of public events." In particular, it is proposed to add two new parts - 9 and 10 to article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses - 9 and 10.

Part 9 will be held accountable for violation of the procedure for the collection and expenditure of funds, or for failure to submit the report to the authorized bodies of information about the waste of the funds raised.

Part 10, in turn, will imply a punishment for the transfer of funds or other property “by a person who is not entitled to transfer funds for these purposes in accordance with federal law.”

Probably, we are talking about non -profit organizations and persons included in the list of foreign agents. The penalty for such a violation will be from 10 to 15 thousand rubles for individuals and from 50 to 100 thousand rubles for legal.

In addition, in the same bill it is proposed to increase the fine for violation of an article on the legal requirements of government representatives (Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). In a new form, the fine will be from 2 to 4 thousand rubles, while now this amount is from 500 to one thousand rubles. A fine for violation of part 6 of this article (re -committing an administrative offense ... this article, if it is committed by the organizer or participant in the meeting, rally ...) will be from 10 to 20 thousand rubles. Now this fine is 5 thousand rubles.

In addition to this, if the bill is accepted, mandatory work will become one of the types of punishment. The terms of administrative arrests are not proposed.

“Such a situation has repeatedly become the subject of criticism of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as other international institutions for the protection of human rights, which noted the unbalanced, redundancy and repressive nature of Russian regulation in the field of freedom of assembly. In such conditions, an offer of additional articles by which the organizers or participants of the shares can be attracted will make the situation definitely worse. An increase in fines and an increase in the measure of other punishments is also continued by the previous prohibitive trend. Currently, violations during the conduct or organization of public events are already one of the few offenses for which you can receive up to 30 days of arrest, ”Denis Sedov comments on the new bill.

Several State Duma deputies also introduced a bill imposing fines for disseminating information about non -profit organizations, public associations and persons included in the register of foreign agents, without an appropriate indication. Moreover, the law will not apply to state sources of information.

• Earlier, deputy Dmitry Vyatkin introduced several more bills affecting freedom of assembly. In one of them, Uneneros proposed to equalize the picket with rallies and processions, as well as leave the right to withdraw the coordination of the action behind the authorized body, if the organizer decided to post facts to change the form and purpose of the event.
• In another previous bill, Vyatkin, in particular, proposed prohibiting the financing of public events anonymously or from abroad. So, the organizers of the shares will not be possible to receive money from foreign states, foreign and international organizations and movements, citizens of other countries and NPOs that perform the functions of a foreign agent. It is assumed that the victim becomes “anonymous” if he incompletely indicates his data in the payment document, or if the data is inaccurate.