In the state Duma a bill to ban the media and bloggers to write about suicide
MOSCOW, may 5. /TASS/. Deputies of the state Council of Udmurtia introduced a bill prohibiting media reports of suicides have occurred and how they occurred. The relevant documents placed in the electronic database of the lower house.
Regional MPs propose to amend the article on the inadmissibility of abuse of freedom of mass media of the Federal law “On mass media”. It is proposed to consolidate the rule prohibiting the dissemination in the media and information and telecommunication networks, “information on methods of committing suicide, conditions, and circumstances of suicide, as well as direct or indirect incitement to commit suicide”.
A similar ban Russian MPs consider it necessary to extend to bloggers.
In addition, lawmakers propose to ban such information for dissemination among children, by making appropriate amendments to the Federal law “On protection of children from information harmful to their health and development”.
In the explanatory note to the bill authors cite an example from the experience of Austria, where, according to them, in 80-e years has vastly increased the number of suicides in the subway.
“In 1987 the Vienna centre for crisis assistance in conjunction with metro staff went on a kind experiment: I decided not to report the facts “death on the rails” or, at least, not to inflate one sensation, giving these accidents a minimum of attention. A month later the number of suicides in the metro declined by almost three times” — the document says. Since then, specify the deputies in the Austrian press, a ban on coverage of such tragic events.