PROPOSAL IN STATE DUMA TO REFINE LAW ON HURTING BELIEVERS' FEELINGS
A deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian federation, Oleg Smolin, introduced into the State Duma a draft law aimed at clarifying the scope of the action of the law concerning offense to believers' feelings. According to the text of the document, posted on the State Duma server, it is proposed to punish only violations committed "in the time and in the places for the conduct of religious rituals, meetings, and ceremonies."
As Smolin emphasizes in an explanatory note, this initiative is aimed at the protection of the "guarantees of freedom of thought and speech established by the constitution of the Russian federation."
"Each person has the right to freely disseminate convictions, including atheist, anticlerical, and antireligious convictions, if he is not at the same time committing actions that violate public order and express clear disrespect toward society and do not infringe the rights and liberties of others," the document says.
At the same time, in Smolin's opinion, now the law on offending believers' feelings defines insufficiently clearly "in what way the right to freedom of conscience and religious confessions may be violated by means of offending religious feelings of believers." As the deputy notes, a broad interpretation of this law "clearly infringes freedom of speech and freedom to transmit, produce, and disseminate information."
In order to avoid this, Smolin suggests limiting the action of part 1 of article 148 of the Criminal Code. According to the amendment, actions that offend believers' feelings are recognized to be violation of law only when they are committed "in the time and in places for the conduct of religious rituals, meetings, and ceremonies."
"Only in this case can such actions be viewed as impeding freedom of conscience and religious confession, that is, as violations of the constitutional rights and liberties of citizens," Smolin explains.
Nevertheless, negative feedback to the draft law has already been given by the apparatus of the government and the Supreme Court. Thus, the government declared that "actions expressing clear disrespect toward society and committed for the purpose of offending religious feelings of believers should remain under criminal legal prohibition regardless of the place and circumstances in which they are committed." The Supreme Court also noted that part 2 of article 148 presumes special accountability for offending believers' feelings in places designated for conduct of religious ceremonies, for example, temples.
The article on offending believers' feelings was introduced into the Criminal Code in 2013. The maximum penalty under this article presumes incarceration for a term of up to three years. The amendments were introduced into the Criminal Code after the demonstration of the punk rock group Pussy Riot in the church of Christ the Savior in 2012. (tr. by PDS, posted 6 October 2017)
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