East Europe Censorship News

Russian lawmakers have passed controversial legislation that would dramatically expand the governments ability to punish internet users -- not for sharing forbidden content but for simply looking it up.

The new measures, which sailed through the Russian parliament and will take effect in September, will introduce fines for people who deliberately searched for knowingly extremist materials and gained access to them through means such as virtual private networks, or VPNs.

VPNs are already widely used in Russia to circumvent the many blocks on websites.

Russia defines extremist materials as content officially added by a court to a government-maintained registry, currently with about 5,500 entries, or content produced by extremist organizations ranging from the LGBT movement to al-Qaeda.

Until now, Russian law stopped short of punishing individuals for seeking information online; only creating or sharing such content is prohibited. The new amendments follow remarks by high-ranking officials that censorship is justified in wartime.

Similar legislation passed recently in neighboring Belarus, Russias close ally ruled by authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, and has been used to justify prosecution of government critics.

The fine for searching for banned content in Russia would be about a $65, while the penalty for advertising circumvention tools such as VPN services would be steeper -- $2,500 for individuals and up to $12,800 for companies.

Tajikistan has enacted a ban on the distribution of the video games Counter-Strike and Grand Theft Auto (GTA), citing concerns about the games containing violent and immoral content.

The country's interior ministry announced that police in the capital, Dushanbe, will conduct raids and inspections of computer gaming centers suspected of selling these games. The ministry said,

Young people and teenagers who regularly play these games come under their negative influence and commit various crimes.

The ministry urged parents to monitor their children's activities and discourage them from playing games that promote killing, theft, and violence.

Authorities in Russia's republic of Chechnya have imposed limits on music tempos to abide by strict cultural norms in the Muslim-majority region.

From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute, Chechnya's Culture Ministry said in a statement earlier this week.

The new tempo standard, which is relatively slow in the context of popular music, was announced following Chechen Culture Minister Musa Dadayev's meeting with local state and municipal artists.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov had instructed Dadayev to make Chechen music conform to the Chechen mentality, according to the statement.

Local artists were ordered to rewrite their music by June 1 to accommodate the changes. Otherwise, they would not be allowed for public performance, the Culture Ministry wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

Members of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's party have introduced a bill to criminalize the spread of information deemed false on the internet and through social media that violates Ukraine's national security.

Ostensibly, the bill is targeted at bot accounts coordinated by Russian special services who, as the authors of the bill claim, are conducting informational influence actions against the state interests of Ukraine. But in reality, the language of the bill is so encompassing that anyone could be arrested for posting information that the right-wing nationalist government in Kiev deems misinformation.

Under the proposed bill, lawmakers would have broad powers to arrest anyone who participates in the creation, acquisition, use or sale of accounts, including those containing knowingly false information, as well as the posting and distribution of inaccurate information.

Anyone who spreads so called misinformation with the intention to damage to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defense capability, national, state, economic or informational security of Ukraine, or to exert influence on decision-making or taking or not taking actions by state bodies or local self-government bodies, officials of these bodies, would likewise face arrest and imprisonment of 5 to 7 years and the confiscation of personal property.