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On 7 May 2021, the European Commission delivered an important decision, finding that the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council’s 12-month suspension of the television channel Rossiya RTR in Latvia, due to incitement to violence or hatred, was compatible with the EU’s Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMDS). This follows a recent EU Court of Justice judgment on restricting transmissions of broadcasts from other EU member states on the basis of incitement to hatred (IRIS 2019-8/3), and earlier European Commission decisions on this issue (see IRIS 2018-7/7 and IRIS 2017-6/5)....

On 30 April 2021, President Vladimir Putin signed into law amendments to the Code on Administrative Offences. Under the new paragraph 2.4 of Article 13.15 of the Code, dissemination in the mass media and in online messages and materials of the mass media of messages and/or materials of foreign mass media performing the functions of a foreign agent and/or a Russian legal entity included in the Register of foreign mass media, performing the functions of a foreign agent, without indicating that these messages and/or materials were created and/or disseminated by foreign mass media performing...

Following the recent entry into force of its decree that approved the standard text and procedure for publishing the imprint of a media outlet founded by a Russian legal entity and considered to be a “foreign agent” (see IRIS 2021-1/1), Roskomnadzor, the Russian governmental supervisory authority in media and communications (see IRIS 2012-8/36), started to monitor its implementation and filed protocols that allow judges to impose fines for violations. The fines were established by Article 19.34.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences, which entered into force in February 2020...

A new edition of Article 128-1 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code was adopted by the State Duma on 23 December and signed by the President on 30 December 2020. It introduces harsher penalties for slander, or the dissemination of intentionally false information that defames a person, “or a number of persons that are not individually defined”. It specifies that slander disseminated online or in the mass media shall now be punished with a fine of up to one million Russian rubles (RUB) - about EUR 11 000 - or up to two years' imprisonment; slander by those holding a management...

A set of amendments that regulates, in particular, the behaviour of journalists covering public protests was entered in the Russian Federation’s Federal Statute “On Meetings, Rallies, Marches and Pickets” (No. 54-FZ of 19 June 2004) by the State Duma on 23 December and signed by the President on 30 December 2020. The amendments to Article 6 of the Federal Statute expand on the requirement for journalists covering mass events to put on markings that distinguish them as members of the press by saying that such markings shall be designed and approved by Roskomnadzor, the Russian...