At a parliamentary hearing dedicated to legislation regulating the internet, TsIK member Maya Grishina introduced an initiative to clarify electoral legislation to fight “unlawful agitation” on social media sites such as LiveJournal, Facebook, and Twitter. The commission is asking for a separate law to govern the rules for posting “political agitation” in the blogosphere and set resources in place that would allow such agitation to be dealt with.

“Our task is to get rid of unjustified constraints and create conditions to persecute violations,” Grishina explained.

She said the most dangerous platform was LiveJournal, where the majority of comments and discussions can be freely viewed by the general public. Moreover, Grishina said, it is precisely on LiveJournal that agitation is posted on the day before elections, despite being banned by law, or that exit poll data is displayed before the last polls close.

According to Gazeta.ru, Robert Shlegel, a member of the State Duma committee on network and information politics known for his work to restrict media freedoms, did not rush to support Grishina’s idea but did say it would be discussed in the next scheduled Duma round table on mass media and internet regulation in December 2011.

Other members of the political community were less forgiving.

“This idea is stupid and impossible to implement,” said Solidarity member Ilya Yashin. “It’s impossible to force American websites (for example, Facebook) to follow Russian laws, and the internet in general is a global space.”

Head of the legal branch of the Communist Party, Vadim Solovyov, said such a law could lead to abuse. “I don’t see anything good in this proposal – people could be accused of illegal agitation for any sort of rubbish on a blog,” he said.

Regional elections took place throughout Russia on March 13, 2011. Upcoming elections for State Duma and the presidency will be held in October 2011 and March 2012, respectively.

Update 4/6/10: The Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, turned down the State Duma’s bill during it’s Tuesday session. Mihkail Kapura, deputy chairman of the judicial committee, cited a lack of viability to implement such restrictions and the danger of bringing about the destruction of free speech.

A new law passed on Monday by the Russian State Duma will ban the media from reproducing any statements whatsoever issued by anyone deemed to be a terrorist, ITAR-TASS reports.

The bill was written by Robert Shlegel, a member of the leading United Russia party and former press secretary for the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. It will amend current legislation governing the media to include a ban on “the distribution of any material from persons wanted for or convicted of participating in terrorist activities.”

Shlegel said that the March 29 suicide bombings on the Moscow metro, which killed 40 people and injured more than 100, was the impetus for the bill. He said that he opposes giving a spotlight in the media to Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader who has claimed responsibility for the attacks. He also criticized Google for allowing its YouTube video service to host a recording of Umarov’s post-March 29 statement.

“News about militants should consist only of reports about their destruction,” Shlegel concluded.

Amidst the heightened criticism at the Russian government’s failure to address terrorism originating in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region, some Kremlin supporters have accused the press of being terrorist collaborators. In particular, State Duma Speaker and United Russia member Boris Gryzlov singled out columnist Aleksandr Minkin of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper as collaborating with the terrorists responsible for the March 29 attacks. Minkin has demanded an apology from Gryzlov and threatened to sue him for slander. Gryzlov has threatened a counter suit. Additionally, United Russia member Andrei Isayev has threatened that party members might sue Minkin for being a terrorist collaborator.

Director Oleg Panfilov of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations said that the new law will turn Russia into a country like North Korea and was another example of Shlegel’s “routine stupidity.” “It immediately raises the question,” he said, “Who do we label as terrorists? Those convicted by the court, or those that the bureaucrats consider to be terrorists?”

Secretary Mikhail Fedotov of the Russian Union of Journalists explained that nothing good could result from Russian society being deprived of information about the positions and confessions of alleged terrorists. “Society should know the face of its villains and understand what kind of evil it is being confronted with,” he stressed.

Even without the new law, the Russian media already faces complications with the authorities’ interpretation of current media legislation. Reports surfaced late Monday that the federal communications supervisory agency Roskomnadzor has accused the online edition of the Argumenty Nedeli newspaper of extremism for posting a video of Umarov’s statement. According to the agency, posting the video violates a law prohibiting the media from being used for extremist activity. The law, however, is criticized by oppositionists and human rights groups as being so vague as to allow the government to define extremism however they’d like, and has resulted in crackdowns on a wide variety of groups and individuals critical of the Kremlin.

The legislation adds a short statement to Part 1, Article 4 of the existing law regulating media outlets, and forbids using a registered media source to spread “false facts that discredit the honor and dignity of another entity, or undermine their reputation.” It passed nearly unanimously, with 399 delegates for, one against, and two abstaining.

When the draft law was originally proposed, on January 25th 2008, it was simply going to add the word “libel,” but it was expanded before it reached a vote. The deputy that initiated the legislation is Robert Shlegel, a former “commissar” of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement, and the youngest MP in Russia. He argued that the standing laws on mass-media were not enough, and that closing a libelous publication was essential, since material compensation was “incommensurately smaller” than the harm done by a libelous article. He added that the law would force editors and media owners keep greater oversight of journalists.

According to Shlegel, the law grants leverage courts to punish outlets that repeatedly publish libelous materials.

By amending the law on mass-media, legislators are also granting greater powers to the Ministry of Justice and Russia’s Federal Registration Agency. Whereas before, trying a libel case was a criminal matter left to the courts, the new law lets officials give out warnings to any newspaper, television channel and radio station without a court case. Two warnings in the course of 12 months mean the media outlet must immediately cease publishing, pending a trial to decide whether it should remain shut permanently.

The Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper cited an unnamed source in the State Duma, who said that the amendments were related to the scandalous article published recently in the Moskovsky Korrespondent, which speculated that President Vladimir Putin was marrying gymnast Alina Kabaeva. That paper has since stopped publishing.

Part 1, Article 4 of the present law “On Mass Media,” is titled the “Inadmissibility of Misuse of the Freedom of Mass Communication.” It says that, “[n]o provision shall be made for the use of mass media for purposes of committing criminally indictable deeds, divulging information making up a state secret or any other law-protective secret, disseminating materials containing public calls to perform terrorist acts or publicly justifying terrorism or other extremist activities, or broadcasting materials propagandizing pornography or the cult of violence and cruelty.”