RUSSIA MAY IMPOSE PENALTIES FOR INTERVIEWING CRIMINALS

‘United Russia’ party is preparing a number of bills aimed at introduction of a ban on public speaking and writing memoirs for criminals. As a punishment, fines are provided for both the previously convicted persons themselves and for journalists and publishers interviewing them. The amount of fines is estimated at millions of rubles.

Amendments can be made to several normative acts at once, including the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the Administrative Code and the Federal Law ‘On Administrative Supervision’.

According to the authors of the initiative, the situation when a person who has committed a crime earns money on this, receiving royalties for stories about what he has done is unacceptable, reports Izvestia. This actually contradicts both common sense and the laws of morality, say the lawmakers.

If the amendments are adopted, a ban on public speaking and writing memoirs could become a mandatory additional punishment for those convicted of violent crimes.

The initiative arose after an interview given to Ksenia Sobchak by Viktor Mokhov, who released from prison, known as ‘Skopinsky maniac’. The man was sentenced in 2005 to 17 years in prison and, after serving his sentence, agreed to talk about what he had done and his plans for the future.

21 years ago, a man kidnapped and held two underage girls in the basement at his land site. For 3.5 years, he raped them, one of the victims twice gave birth to children, whom he took away and left in the entrances of residential buildings.