“Interfax”: HRC and SZHR sent to the State Duma a draft law on amendments to the law on foreign agents 
Civil
Society and Human Rights (HRC) and the Union of Journalists of Russia (UJR) have sent to the State Duma a bill on amendments to the law on foreign agents. This is reported by Interfax with reference to representatives of organizations.
It is noted that the amendments were sent for consideration to the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications Alexander Khinshtein.
HRC member Eva Merkacheva said that the Council sent two bills, one of them contains amendments to the law on individuals, and the second to the law on non-profit organizations. “That is, they are determined by different laws, therefore amendments should be in different laws,” she clarified.
According to her, the HRC members suggested that the authorities warn individuals and non-profit organizations that they can be included in the register of foreign agents, and give them three months so that they can send a reasoned response to the authorized body and take action to eliminate the grounds for inclusion to the list.
The Council also spoke in favor of the fact that individuals who are already recognized as foreign agents should not label personal information – comments, posts about privacy, photographs. In addition, the amendments from the HRC say that international prizes and awards should not be a reason for inclusion in the register of foreign agents.
The head of the UJR Vladimir Soloviev said that the Union supports all the amendments proposed by the HRC to the Russian law on foreign agents. According to him, for its part, the UJR proposed making the issue of recognizing a foreign agent a competence of the judiciary.
At the end of August, employees of several media outlets wrote an open appeal to the Russian authorities. The journalists asked to repeal the law on foreign agents. Press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the letter, said that the law on foreign agents could not be canceled, but at the same time allowed its amendment.