MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) — A bill has been submitted to the State Duma on Wednesday which envisages administering fines worth up to 200,000 roubles to mass media outlets which use obscene language. The authors of the bill are Duma Vice-speaker Sergei Zheleznyak from the United Russia and his two fellow deputies from the same faction Dmitry Vyatkin and Robert Shlegel.
After a Bill on protection of children from information harmful to their health and development was adopted we suggested amending the Code of administrative offences and adding a clause to the Code that envisages responsibility for circulation of a mass media product which contains obscene languages and impose a fine (maximum 200,000 roubles or around 6,300 dollars) on juridical entities responsible, Sergei Zheleznyak told journalists.
For the time being fines are administered only in case of the use of obscene languge in public places, Zheleznyak said. Under the law on protection of children from harmful information the ban on the use of non-normative language applies to mass media production intended for a pre-school and teenage age groups only,while we have considered a possibility of imposing a similar ban on all mass media broadcasts and publications, Zheleznyak said,
He mentioned numerous complaints lodged by citizens with federal; bodies of the executive power against the use of non-normative language in TV broadcasts an printed media." I think it is important to enhance responsibility for the use of obscene language in the mass media in general, because children’s culture depends on the level of culture of the society in general," the author of the bill said.