Experts: law on separatism needs to examine concept of "separatism"

At the end of last week State Duma deputies from the "United Russia" party, Yevgeny Fyodorov and Anton Romanov, and from the "Just Russia", Mikhail Emelyanov, introduced a controversial bill proposing the introduction of criminal penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment for separatist propaganda. The authors claim that separatists threaten the territorial integrity of Russia.

The chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, Kirill Kabanov, has talked to Vestnik Kavkaza about the bill. Kabanov called for "separatism" and "separatist propaganda" to be clearly defined. He stressed that if the bill passes unchanged it could cause negative attitudes in North Caucasian society. "This initiative has the right to exist... only if we are given a clear definition of separatism," the expert said.

Earlier, the editor-in-chief of Vestnik Kavkaza, Alexei Vlasov, also talked about the issue and called for the notions of separatism and separatist propaganda to be defined. "For example, is a statement about separation of the North Caucasus from Russia regarded as separatism? If yes, then one will have to put a significant part of the liberal opposition and the nationalists in jail. It is of course important to fight the phenomenon of separatism, but whether this bill is the best way to do it is a big question," Vlasov said.