MOSCOW, January 20. /ITAR-TASS/. This week, the Russian State Duma lower house of parliament will give a second reading to the bill aimed to intensify fight against extremism, Speaker Sergei Naryshkin told reporters on Monday.

Plans are to discuss the bill on January 22. Deputies “will consider under the second reading amendments to the Criminal Code and Rules of Criminal Procedure, aimed at tightening fight against extremism-related crimes, including terrorism,” he said. The bill was to upgrade crimes from minor to medium-gravity and grave crimes and to increase fines and prison terms, he explained.

The new law would also “expand possibilities of law enforcement agencies to use the whole arsenal of special investigative techniques in solving such crimes,” Naryshkin added.

The bill submitted by the Russian government was passed by the lower house under the first reading in December 2013. It tightens punishment for crimes envisaged in certain articles of the Russian Criminal code, such as public appeals for extremism, stirring up of hatred or enmity, abasement of human dignity, as well as organizing the work of an extremist organization.

The necessity of amendments is explained by the fact that fight against extremism-related, especially those dangerous for the society and the state, are among Russia’s priority tasks at the moment. “Emerging as extremist manifestations, destructive processes underway in the world on the whole, as well as in Russia, quickly grow into their most dangerous form if the state does not react quickly enough becoming active and criminal deeds of terrorist nature,” an explanatory note to the bill said.