6 April 1999
YELTSIN VETOES BILL ON STATE CONTROL OF BROADCAST MEDIA
President Boris Yeltsin vetoed legislation on 31 March that would have established a council of lawmakers to oversee ''the protection of morals in Russian TV and radio broadcasts,'' reports the International Press Institute (IPI). According to IPI, "The President said the legislation would be a form of censorship explicitly outlawed by Russian law." The law, "On the Supreme Council for the Protection of Moral Standards in Television and Radio Broadcasting in the Russian Federation," which was approved by both houses of Russia's parliament in early March, would have created a high council comprising of 12 members to protect moral standards in broadcasting.
The council would have been empowered to take "appropriate measures" against any television or radio station broadcasting a programme "liable to enflame social, racial, national, religious hatred, enmity or superiority, or advocating war, violence or cruelty." According to IPI, "Several members of the Communist-led Duma have recently decried the rise in sex and violence on Russian television and radio since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and its strict media censorship." IPI opposed the bill "in the belief that it sought a return to censorship and the centralised control of the media, and could be used to suppress legitimate news and opinion, in particular during the campaigns for the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for the end of this year and in mid-2000, respectively." [Updates IFEX "Communique" #8-11.]
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