Another censorship bill registered in parliament.

The Verkhovna Rada has a bill that introduces criminal liability for defamation in the public space, including on the Internet. The authors of the project are deputies from BPP Nikolay Palamarchuk, Arthur Palatny, Oleg Velikin.

They believe that this is a fair mechanism for situations where journalists spread information about politicians that is not true.

According to lawyers, this bill could lead to auto-censorship in the media and the courts even for comments on Facebook..

The main innovations of the project:.

responsibility for libel up to 2 years of freedom restriction, in case the information is distributed “by public demonstration in works, mass media or on the Internet” - up to 5 years of freedom restriction.

imprisonment for up to 3 years, if in libel we are talking about particularly serious crimes.

As noted by Vita Volodovskaya, a lawyer of the public organization “Laboratory of Digital Security Behind”, if a person considers that a post on Facebook or a comment under him discredits his honor, he can initiate criminal proceedings. In fact, the introduction of criminal liability for defamation offers great opportunities for abuse of this mechanism, especially with our judicial system..

On November 7, 2018, a number of deputies, including Ivan Vinnik, Oksana Bilozir, Elena Matuzko, Tatiana Chernovol and others, registered in the parliament the draft law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Concerning the Protection of the Information Space” (register. No. 9275). The document proposes to give the right of the Verkhovna Rada to submit to the National Security Council for consideration proposals on the application of sanctions to the media, including electronic media.

Recall that criminal liability for defamation in Ukraine has been abolished since 2001.. Now for the dissemination of such information provides administrative liability.

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