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Putin for specifying defamation notion in RF Criminal Code

President also suggested to Human Rights Council to make proposals how to obligate officials to respond promptly to requests from journalists
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, November 13 (Itar-Tass) — Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it is possible to specify the notion “defamation” in the RF Criminal Code.

“In the defamation article it is possible to clarify the wording. This issue has already been much debated,” he said at a meeting of the RF Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) answering a question put by journalist Yelena Masyuk.

“It’s not so much the officials, on which indecent people from well-known corporations profit, it’s about businessmen defamation of which will cost them money, it’s about representatives of show business, artists, well-known people in general. There are such people in every sphere, including journalism,” the president continued. Putin cited as an example the case of the head of the BBC. He resigned after the broadcasting corporation published materials accusing one of the politicians of paedophilia and that did not correspond to reality. “This is a problem of the state of society in general,” he said.

Putin also suggested to the Human Rights Council to make proposals how to obligate officials to respond promptly to requests from journalists. The RF head of state recalled that the old legal norm on the matter was adopted a long time ago and is outdated. However, he stressed that he has no idea how to do it. “There is no response. It's bad. But I don’t see how it can be done,” he said. However, the RF president said that the media sphere is over commercialised and that there is too much paid journalism there.