MOSCOW, June 11. /TASS/. Dress code for journalists working in Russia’s State Duma, will be fixed in the new accreditation rules, but won’t be tightened, the State Duma Public Relations and Media Department said, commenting on the article on the subject in Izvestia daily.
The newspaper reported in today’s edition that the lower house of the Russian parliament would introduce a dress code for reporters. In particular, journalists wearing shorts or short skirts may be not allowed in the building.
"No one is talking about introducing a dress code out of the blue, this is not true," the department spokesman said. He recalled that in recent months new accreditation rules were being drawn up, adding that they had been discussed with journalists ahead of their adoption. "Head of [the State Duma Public Relations and Media] Department Yury Shuvalov has held a press briefing, during which he drew attention of all correspondents accredited in the State Duma to the new rules the document that is being prepared contains," the spokesman said.
He noted that "the new rules will spell out the necessity of observing the dress code." This is not about toughening the dress code. It means that the new rules will contain this new provision - for those extremely rare cases when the dress code violations occur," he said. He added that this was done "to ensure that the actions taken by the department’s staff [with regard to violators] relied on standards envisaged by the rules."
The spokesman for the Duma department confirmed that the accreditation rules "were in their final stages." "I hope that during the autumn session we will live under the new rules," he said, adding that "when the new rules are adopted, another conversation with journalists on the subject with journalists is likely to be held.".