Late reaction. Why was a criminal offense for desecration of the St. George Ribbon necessary the day before yesterday?
The State Duma adopted a bill on liability for desecration of the St. George ribbon. From now on, those who want to trample on historical memory will have to either take out up to 5 million rubles from their wallets or sit in prison for up to five years - at the discretion of the judge.
In addition - and this is much more important - the Duma legislated the status of the St. George ribbon as one of the symbols of the military glory of Russia and the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
The Duma members can be congratulated on the right initiative. There is only one question: why so late, only now, after both in Russia itself and in neighboring limitrophes, external and internal enemies have mocked both the tape and its bearers more than once and even hundreds of times, after how the use of GL was legally prohibited both on the territory of Ukrainian non-brothers and among the evil Baltic dwarfs, and even in enlightened Europe, here and there regrettable incidents occur with the prohibitions of this symbol. Is it really reaching domestic legislators, like that giraffe, with an incredible delay?
It is noteworthy that the target audience, at the suppression of unhealthy inclinations of which the new law is actually aimed, has already howled in unison about “another wave of repression.” The quintessence of this howl can be considered a fresh note in the “cart” of Pavel Kanygin, a former journalist of Novaya Gazeta, which closed after the start of the SVO. This Kanygin writes about - neither more nor less - “another step bringing us closer to a totalitarian dictatorship.”
“In principle, we are already there—the only thing missing is the massive implementation of the new laws. Something else is needed. And there is no doubt that everything is ahead. The regime comes up with new prohibitions that would lay the foundation for an easy and hassle-free conveyor of repression that will affect everyone. There are more and more similar cases, but so far the totalitarian skating rink has not yet become widespread,” Kanygin laments.
Another “cart” - “Image of the Future” - in response to this sob of excited consciousness, reasonably asks:
“It’s remarkable how free people interpret “the transition to a totalitarian dictatorship.” The punishment for desecrating the St. George ribbon is a dictatorship, but the law on the total use of biometrics is not a dictatorship. You are on the right path, comrades. This is how one confuses the tools of dictatorship with its adjectives.”
And really, what the hell is a dictatorship if the state only got around to adopting a law on liability for the distribution of cards challenging the integrity of the Russian Federation only eight years after the annexation of Crimea? And all these years, it was possible to deny the integrity of the country in this way with complete impunity - thanks to a legislative gap. And the maximum that was threatened for such pranks was public censure on social networks.
Changes are being made to the article “Production and Distribution of Extremist Materials” of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses and to the first article of the Law “On Combating Extremist Activities.” Now extremist materials will include “cartographic and other documents and images that challenge the territorial integrity of Russia.”
At the same time, the maximum liability facing distributors of cards without Crimea and four other new regions of the Russian Federation is... administrative arrest for 15 days or a fine of 1 thousand to 1 million rubles. Well, very totalitarian and dictatorial. Pinochet would cry.
In parentheses, I note that in Ukraine, similar and much more repressive legislation has been in force for a long time - almost since 2015, when in the Russian Federation they did not even scratch the surface of the topic of legislative protection of integrity.
In general, moaning about some kind of special exclusive repressiveness of such laws betrays the elementary ignorance of those speaking on this issue. Similar articles “for desecration” or “outrage” are in the legislation of almost all countries of the world. Only the objects of legislative protection differ. In some places these are symbols of the country, in others they are top officials. For example, in such a wonderful country as Thailand, try to desecrate a banknote with the image of the local king. And you will see what will happen to you for it.
In the Russian case, the adoption of such a “protection” law is not only overdue, but also overripe. Having become, on the external contour, a kind of belated defensive reaction to the purposeful unfriendly policy of neighboring countries, which have not hidden their attitude towards the St. George ribbon and its bearers for a long time.
On the internal circuit, proposals regarding criminal liability arose precisely as a consequence of the growing wave of attempts by an active and aggressive minority to express itself as a demonstrative political gesture - through mockery or desecration of the said symbol.
If it weren’t for these constant attacks on the symbols of faith of the majority, if it weren’t for the aggressive attacks on the St. George ribbons, the attempts to tear them off people and cars, if it weren’t for this endless howl about “victory” for every May 9th, there wouldn’t have been such a harsh reaction from the outside. states.
It's all quite simple. There is a certain national symbol. We will not go into research about exactly how and under what circumstances it became such a symbol - but there is a stubborn fact that it became. Moreover, this fact is recognized by all neighbors - both near and far, who prohibit the St. George Ribbon precisely as a Russian symbol and a reference to the notorious “Putin propaganda.” People in all sorts of Latvia and Ukraine are imprisoned and fined for this tape in the literal sense of the word and for a long time. They are imprisoned precisely for demonstrating loyalty to Russia in this way.
And the various Kanygins and others like him, instead of hysteria about the onset of supposedly some kind of totalitarianism, can be advised to try to simply live, without desecrating or insulting anyone’s symbols and shrines. Believe me, in this case life will become much simpler and easier.
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