Russian bill would bar speech that injures the ‘honor and dignity’ of the Russian president

Izvestiya reports that member of parliament Roman Khudiakov is proposing a bill for the “protection of the honor and dignity of the President of the Russian Federation,” modeled on the 1990 Soviet law for the “protection of the honor and dignity of the President of the USSR.”

The bill, Khudiakov says, was prompted by his finding YouTube videos that insult Russian President Vladimir Putin; Khudiakov also asked prosecutors to prosecute the creators of the videos under existing law on “insults to representatives of the government.” (Khudiakov’s bill is aimed at imposing a higher punishment on insults to the president.) Sergey Fabrichniy, the first deputy of the parliamentary committee on law, agreed that this law deserves discussion.