Draft law on disinformation: journalists can be imprisoned for 7 years

Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports of Ukraine Vladimir Borodiansky. Photo: vesti.ua

The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of Ukraine has unveiled a draft law “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Ensuring National Information Security and the Right to Access to Reliable Information”.

The draft law introduces norms for the provision of the “Confidence Index” to mass media by the Cabinet of Ministers, the position of government representative for blocking information and media, and criminal liability for “fake news” with the possibility of imprisonment of up to 7 years.

Experts believe that the draft law gives the authorities the opportunity to put pressure on any media and on any journalist.

The head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine Sergey Tomilenko, commenting on the document, noted that it provides for interference in journalistic activities.

“The comparative table published by the Ministry of Culture for the draft Law ‘... on Ensuring National Information Security and the Right to Access to Reliable Information’ details greater state regulation of the activities of Ukrainian journalists, introduces the position of government commissioner for blocking information and media (under the accelerated judicial procedure) and criminal liability with the imprisonment of up to 7 years.

The state will grant the media the ‘Confidence Index’ (one year valid). Confidence is also mentioned in the work of the Commissioner for Information. It is through the ‘electronic system of confidence’ that he will demand in the media the ‘refutation of disinformation’ and frighten with further prosecution. By the way, the Commissioner will have the right to ask to block access to any site in Ukraine or, for example, a Telegram channel if it is anonymous, which violates the transparency requirements of mass media on the Internet (Article 55, amendment to the Law on Information).

The key idea of the Ministry of Culture is the introduction of essentially licensing the journalistic profession. Journalists and ‘professional journalists’ will work in Ukraine. The law contains a special section – ‘Self-government of Ukrainian Journalists’, through which the state regulates in twenty (!) articles the work of the special ‘Association of Professional Journalists of Ukraine’,” wrote Sergey Tomilenko.

He also added that the project of the Ministry of Culture aims to establish control over the media and journalists.

We recall that earlier Deputy Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports of Ukraine Anatoly Maksimchuk said that the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of Ukraine plans to create a self-governing organization of journalists, which will partially monitor the implementation of the new media law being developed by the Government.

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