Laws in Russia vs NGO, anti-russian/extremist groups etc.

http://www.euronews.com/2012/07/11/russian-duma-passes-controversial-internet-law/

Russian politicians have taken another step towards approving a new law on the internet which its supporters say will protect children, and its critics argue opens the door to censorship.

The Duma has finished voting through amendments to the law, which were passed unanimously.

The law seeks to control sites containing paedophilia, promoting drugs or advising on suicide.

Opponents include Russia’s main search engine Yandex. On Wednesday its slogan “you can find everything” had the word “everything” crossed out.

Critics fear censorship because who will decide whether material is suitable has not been specified.

Its supporters in parliament disagree. Elena Mizulina, who chairs the Just Russia party’s family committee, said:
“We don’t need such information on the internet, on sites which are accessible to everyone parents can’t control it. We have so many demands from parents and parents’ associations, a hundred times more than those who’re supporting Wikipedia.”

The online encyclopaedia’s Russian website staged a 24-hour blackout on Tuesday in protest at the law, instead publishing the words “imagine a world without free knowledge”.

The bill now goes to the upper house of parliament for approval and if passed, to President Putin for ratification.




I find this law an act of censorship and act to destroy any opposition to Russian Government. The USA tried to pass a carbon copy of this law before if you guys remember the outcry...

I agree, on the other hand this low has to be observed with NGO law.

Its a good thing to counter 7Bin$ financing NGO from outside.

And here is expected reaction from EU council.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120712/174570350.html

GarryB wrote:There are already laws on censorship... even on this forum.

There will always be censorship and there needs to be.

There is no country in the world that would let people go into a crowded place like a movie theatre and shout out that there is a bomb. The families of anyone killed in the stampede to leave would not understand your right to free speech.

Obviously the main risk is that the use of these new laws will be misapplied and used politically, but it is like anti smacking laws that try to deal with child abuse... there is a gray area where some would say an open handed smack to the backside of a child is discipline... of course burning a childs arm with a burning cigarette is fairly clearly child abuse.

The laws that really take the cake in my opinion are the laws in Britain... particularly this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour_Order

A law that makes acts that are not actually ilegal... ilegal. If someone complains that you have offended them by something you have done... they can take you to court and you will be stopped from doing what you were doing. It might be walking around your own house in your underpants. Get caught doing it two more times and go to jail...

Sounds like a loaded gun to me...

They used that British Law as a example to pass this law

Potentially dangerous law. Now, this is not to say that it will actually be used in the way that it's feared. After all, America actually has the power to detain anybody and lock them up in Guantanamo Bay without trial; but in practice it only reserves such treatment for terrorists or very suspected terrorists, not domestic dissidents.

A Moscow court ruled on Friday to prolong custody of three women from the Pussy Riot punk group for another six months ahead of their trial on charges related to an anti-Putin protest.

“We will appeal the ruling,” lawyer Nikolai Polozov told RIA Novosti after the court had extended custody until January 12, 2012.

The group’s defense team has accused the courts of fulfilling a “political order” and asked on Friday for President Vladimir Putin and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, to be summoned as witnesses.

Police detained four people as supporters and critics of the group rallied outside the court, reported the ovd.info.org website, which monitors protest-related arrests in Russia.

The three suspects, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23 Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, have been behind bars since March.

They were detained after four masked members of Pussy Riot performed a song in Moscow’s largest cathedral in late February against what they said was church support for Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign.

The song, entitled “Holy S**t,” featured the lyrics “Virgin Mary, drive Putin out!” and came amid unprecedented demonstrations against the twelve-year rule of the former KGB officer. The suspects admit being part of the Pussy Riot group, but say they did not take part in the protest in the landmark Christ the Savior cathedral. Putin called the protest “unpleasant.”

The group members have been charged with hooliganism as part of an organized group.

Prosecutors say the group “insulted in a sacrilegious manner the centuries-old foundations of the Russian Orthodox Church” and performed a “blasphemous” song in the cathedral

A host of figures from Russia’s arts world, including some notable Putin supporters, signed a letter last month calling for the suspects to be released. The letter was later backed by the Kremlin’s own rights council. Amnesty International also named the suspects prisoners of conscience in April.

While a number of figures within Russia’s influential Orthodox Church have expressed disquiet at the continued detention of the suspects, Church head Patriarch Kirill criticized in March those believers he said were seeking leniency for the group.

And leading Church official Vsevolod Chaplin said last month that God had revealed to him his displeasure over the protest. “This sin will be punished in this life and the next,” Chaplin cited God as saying.

Pussy Riot first hit the headlines in January, when they raced through a musical diatribe against Putin on a snowy Red Square, calling for “Revolt in Russia!” and chanting “Putin’s got scared” before being detained by police.

http://en.rian.ru/society/20120720/174700687.html

Yeah this is pretty shit

Frankly I don't care about whether this issue is being used by Russia's rivals or not (and it is).

We brought the whole thing on ourselves. Someone should blow up that cathedral before its too late!

Going half naked into the cathedral in front of all kinds of clerics and screaming some gibberish deserves the prison sentence.

They could've protested against putin somewhere else. Moral standards in russia are being set very low lately.

I heard the church wanted a seven year sentence for these b**ches but putin opposed to it and they have 2 years sentence thanks to his intervention.

What moral standards?

The commies blew all these churches to high heaven; didn't get a single day of prison for it and rightly so.

Came across this article from 2012 which is still an interesting read...apparently the US state department paid for their first record (if it can be called that) after they became the symbols of "Russian oppression"...how predictably stupid and comical

The Secret History of Pussy Riot
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/23/the-secret-history-of-pussy-riot/

Many people are attacking russia for destroying free speech through this law.

I heard its restricting what words films and music should use? Do you agree with it?
I generally hate these "decensy" type laws peddled by the "values" crowd in russia and the orthodox church. These are rigid archaic stifling measures that don't do absolutely anything good. If you don't like if some film or music uses swearing then don't buy it or watch it. Besides how will this law be enforced?

Russia needs to stop copying Tipper Gore and the the "family values" crowd in the US.

Or this law is almost entirely untrue and just western propaganda making things up?

Question is: Is it outright banned? Or are there measures in place so that any media messages that do have swearing in it, are forced to have warnings putin place to warn viewer of such things and restricted for people under a certain age?

I know I can be real foul mouthed at times, but many Russians I met that come directly from the country are worst than me. I wonder if this is a big issue or not. But, I do not think swearing adds any value to a dialogue (unless one is really pissed) to anything. Many swear here way too much to the point that a discussion is pointless.

So it all depends on where the countries culture is headed and how strict these laws are (regarding punishment), to detetmin if this is warrented or not.

So far, only stupid law they passed (or trying too) is that bloggers law stating anyone with 30,000 or more views is warrented to get a mass media license and have to post under their real name, like in news papers and online.

WTF now Russia is banning my language!   Russian language is not the same without it! 

This was quite popular in my country amongst youth that doesn't even speak Russian

If you don't like if some film or music uses swearing then don't buy it or watch it.

As I know, the law only bans a public use of abusive language such as in media or public speeches. It's not a new law, but a revision of penalties in the old one. Revision only takes in account mass media. So you still can go to a concert of "Leningrad" band for example.

Free speech isn't about using an abusive language.

Free Speech, this term is so beloved in the US that the majority of people don't even know what that means.

Free Speech is the protection of a citizen from the government, so he/she does not get prosecuted for whatever he/she says. The problem is lot of people think they have "free speech" towards other citizen and start abusing their ability to speak with foul language and in the end of the day, people can smack those ignorant people for insulting them.


And Free Speech does not exist in no country, every country has forbbiden to speak about certain things, or starts a media war against individuals who dared to ask questions or speak about governments hypocrisis,false flag operations, corruption etc.

In western countries you can't have another opinion then russia is bad and USA is good and makes everything right, and terrorists are good as long they fight against russia, but are bad when they fight the very next day against the own country.

Free Speech, Human Rights and Rights in general, are all hocus pocus. The only Right that exists is the right of the strongest, we see it every day since millenias, one nation overwhelms another nation in war and history becomes what winner says, regardless of who was the aggressor in reality.

one nation overwhelms another nation in war and history becomes what winner says, regardless of who was the aggressor in reality.

As it said, good always defeats evil, so the winner is always a good guy

http://russia-insider.com/en/russian-lawmaker-blasts-game-thrones-toxic-trash-good-him/ri8029

I've always believed the russian society would be a good balance between personal freedoms and tolerance, and traditionionalism. However, when I see articles like this I'm reminded that russia isn't immune from the type of retarded  "moral values" which pollute US right wing mainstream media. Do you have to like Game of Thrones? No, you don't. You don't even have to like its portrayal of a pseudo medieval Europe. That does not mean anyone, anywhere, EVER, should be attempting to censor a TV show for having the gall to portray a large variety of often morally reprehensible characters doing morally reprehensible things like killing, lying, cheating, etc, just like people do and have done in real life since the dawn of time. And they certainly should not pull this nigh meaningless "values" card, because as much as I respect Mr Milonov's right to hold those values I also firmly believe he has no right to push those values on anyone else in any way. Game of Thrones is not going to cause the downfall of "traditional" Russian values or culture, I have faith they aren't so pathetically fragile and if they were then it could be considered no great loss. Censoring this show in Russia would be as grotesque and petty as if any Western country deciding to censor Russian tv shows or movies because they feel they threaten said western country's culture. It's rubbish, and there's no possible justification.


I'd also like to remind that even though countless studies have tried to connect TV violence with "moral degradation" or whatever crap you religious zealots try to peddle, they have time and time again failed to prove it. Hell if we look back there was hardly less violence and perversion in any "more moral society" of the past, except then people saw and experienced it in real life, while now it's mostly confined to the screen. If you try to repress society from doing something, it doesn't stop doing it, niether it reduces the action, it just hides it. If you don't like a specific show, then don't watch it. And don't tell me you can't avoid it, even the most popular vilent shows recieve very little advertising and these ads never show the so terrifying "moral perversions"

I wouldn't be suprised if your favorite all so godly and moral milonov regularly porks in the closet. If he does, well, may I wish him 100 sweaty black men go at him raw.

As someone who has read (and now owns) every book in the series so far, this article certainly surprised me. To start with the books are fantastic, with some of the deepest and most enjoyable characters I have ever come across in a fantasy series (close to epics such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings). Personally I found the sexual content to be a little too graphic and gratuitous in some of the earlier books, something that seemed to vanish as the story progressed. The books are gritty, dark, and don't dilly-dally around. Your favourite characters that have been throughout the entire series will die and not in some heroic style gunfight at the O.K. Corral, they will simply be alive in one sentence, dead the next. I found this immensely satisfying, as I find realism even in my escapism to be important. As for the TV adaptation of the series I have never been interested in it, as it apparently varies from the books in a few areas to quite an extent. Obviously ideas stated in picture such as graphic violence and sex verging on the pornographic are far more impactful when seen rather than read. In saying that, it's not exactly a kid's show. My moral basis hasn't been shaken because I read a series of hardcore fantasy books, that would be silly.

As for sexual deviances there isn't actually much of it, (in fact the only two gay characters in the TV series don't even exist in the books ) and when there is reference to paedophilia or the such it is always implied in a negative sense and usually in reference to literal war criminals. George R.R. Martin has said that his stories were constructed from the history of families such as the Borgia and other Renaissance Italy families, who he says "Make my characters look like pansies" (or something to that effect). So, history is more dangerous to our moral basis than a fantasy series, which probably means we should censor history, Germany style.  

Censoring content is generally a dangerous road... However controlling the age group that sees content such as GoT is important. I constantly think of the example of the Grand Theft Auto game series, a series that is extremely adult in content, yet 12 year old kids just have their mum's go and buy the games for them. Perhaps if the mother knew what actually happened in games such as this she would have second thoughts (even though there is a giant red R18 sticker on the front of the box). There is an issue here, but perhaps as technology advances, we'll see it resolved. It mainly comes down to parenting, a quality that is hugely lacking in our culture.  

Censorship is just a branch of the very thing we're experiencing here in the West, it's simply trusting in Big Brother to make the right decisions for you.