State Duma depute: there is a threat to informational security of the country

The State Duma on Thursday passed the draft law limiting foreign interests in Russian mass media to under 50%. The draft law was passed on the first reading. PRAVDA.Ru journalist Sergey Stephanov asked one of the authors of the draft law Alexander Chuyev (Unity fraction) to comment on it: “The necessity of this draft law arose long ago. Actually there is a threat to the informational security of the nation. Therefore the majority of the deputies (332) voted for the law. Only Yabloko and a part of the Unit of the Right-Wing Forces were against. Foreign investors are very active at the market of Russian Mass Media. In particular, a Swiss company purchased 75% of the Darial TV shares recently. It is well known that negotiations with Ted Turner on purchasing of the control packet of NTV shares have been conducted lately, etc. In such a case it is necessary to retain the national mass media in order to guarantee the right of our citizens to the freedom of speech. This law regards foreign judicial and natural persons, persons without citizenship and persons with double citizenship. At the same time these measures are not to make all the foreign investors to leave Russian market of mass media. By the way such laws have already been adopted by several foreign countries, such as USA, France, Poland, Czechia. Some countries have imposed even more strict limits: for example, in Greece foreigners can buy only 25% of shares, in USA only 20%…