MPS Suggest Criminalizing Outrage On Anthem

The State Duma legislation committee has penned a draft law, which, if approved, will make outrage upon the National Anthem a punishable offense. The proposal was motivated by a number of incidents in which radical champions of human rights or of democracy ignored the Russian national anthem or even scorned it outright. The legislators suggest the outrage on the National Flag and/or Anthem be "punishable by a fine amounting to 100 to 300 minimum wages, or to the convict's salary or other income earned in one to three months, or by three to six months under arrest, or by a term of imprisonment of up to one year." The Committee believe the bill is justified by the fact that the Russian law carries the same penalty for outrage on the National Anthem as for that on the National Flag or the Emblem.