MOSCOW, August 17. /TASS/. Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova welcomes the idea of liberalizing Article 282 of the Criminal Code (Incitement of Hatred and Humiliation of Human Dignity) in order to ease punishment for likes and reposts in social networks.
"I support the idea of liberalizing this article. I believe it is important to avoid artificially increasing the number of people with convictions, because this fundamentally upsets human lives," she said when asked about punishment for reposts in social networks.
Mail.ru group earlier asked Moskalkova to formulate a query to the Constitutional Court with a question if the enforcement of Article 282 of the Criminal Code was a violation of the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens proclaimed by Article 29 of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of thought and speech. Moskalkova believes that "no violation of constitutional norms is observed here."
"It is necessary to address this issue in the normal fashion: through law-making activities by the State Duma and agencies with the right of legislative initiative," Moskalkova said.
Mail.ru Group also asked the State Duma to initiate a bill on the amnesty of those convicted for actions in social networks, if such actions had not entailed socially harmful effects, and the Supreme Court, to summarize courts’ law enforcement practices in cases involving responsibility for crimes in the Internet (in particular, reposts, likes and posts in the social networks).