Disrespect Putin and You'll Pay a $23,000 Fine
Russia's new censorship laws spell the end of what’s left of media freedom.
No disrespect.
Photographer: Alexei Nikolsky/TASS via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to sign four bills into law allowing him to clamp down on the last vestiges of press freedom. The ranks of independent media and bloggers that have tried to work under the country’s ever-tightening web of censorship are nearing the end of the road.
Two of the bills will make it illegal to publish material “expressing in an indecent form a clear disrespect” for the Russian state, introducing fines of up to 300,000 rubles ($4,600) or 15 days in jail for the offense. The other two will ban the spread of fake news deemed to endanger public safety on pain of fines of as much as 1.5 million rubles.