THE INSULTING OF VETERAN WILL BE EQUAL TO REHABILITATION OF NAZISM

The parliamentarians of United Russia party decided that the liability established by law for insulting veterans was insufficient. The initiative group, represented by Irina Yarova, Vladimir Shamanov, Alexander Khinshtein and Sergei Boyarsky, plans to amend the draft law aimed at protecting historical memory on February 24. The draft law itself was adopted on January 10 in the first reading.

The reason for the improvement of the legislation was the case of Alexei Navalny, who on February 20 was sentenced to a fine of 850 thousand rubles for slanderous statements against the participant of the Great Patriotic War Ignat Artemenko. A high-profile case against Navalny was initiated last summer, after the oppositionist's comments on the video featuring the veteran were published.

In the video, Artemenko called for support for legislative amendments to the Russian Constitution.

According to Khinshtein, the penalties given in such cases are incommensurate with the severity of the moral consequences. And although the legal responsibility in cases related to libel was already toughened last year (Navalny was sued on the basis of the version of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which was in force in June last year), now the deputies decided to equate the insult of the veteran with another crime, dedicated to the rehabilitation of Nazism.

The amendments proposed by the United Russia deputies will touch on Article 354 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Article 13.15 of the Administrative Code, which provides for punishment for abuse of the right to freedom of information.

Law enforcement agencies will be able to prosecute citizens and organizations that publicly disseminate false information about front-line soldiers, as well as insulting the historical memory of participants in the Second World War.

Parliamentarian Shamanov called such cases "a mockery of the honor and dignity of veterans," stressing that the toughening should lead to the courts imposing real terms of imprisonment in this category of cases, but not just penalties. At present, Article 354 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contains the possibility of sentencing criminals to 5 years in prison and punishing them with a fine of up to half a million rubles.