THE Signs of the One Suffered from Disturbance of Performing the Professional Journalists Activity

R.D. Ishimova

Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University
18, Kremlyovskaya st., Kazan, 420008
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Today we can not find many cases of criminal proceedings started by law enforcement under Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the RF. Unofficial statistics on this issue shows that the period of 2010-2011 saw one of the largest number of violation of journalist’s rights in the RF. According to the Glasnost Defence Foundation, there many cases of suspicious deaths of journalists, as well as many assaults on journalists, and attacks on editorial offices. The law enforcement bodies are not usually so quick to defend journalists and start criminal proceedings. Among the reasons of this situation is the status of the victim: it is a journalist, not a doctor or a teacher. Also russian history has been replete with examples of individuals with power exercising their power to affect mass media censorship.

In this article the author analyses obligatory characteristics of a victim from this crime which are contained in the Criminal Code. The victim from the interference with a journalist’s lawful professional activity is an individual who legally edits, investigates and reports of events, issues for mass-media, whose lawful activity is damaged. The victim must have a legal status of journalist: he must research, write, and report on information to be presented in mass media, including print media (newspapers and magazines), electronic media (television, radio, documentary film), and digital media (such as online journalism). The author substantiate that relatives of journalist is not victims from the crime articulated in art. 144 of the Criminal Code of the RF. The journalist’s activity should be a lawful because the law defends only conduct which does not violate the legal norms. The criminal has aim to force the journalist to dissemination or to refuse of dissemination of information by using coercion, blackmail, a threat.

It is obvious that law-enforcement bodies should respond to the situations of forcing journalist to dissemination or to rejection of dissemination of information.

Keywords: legal status of victim; the interference with a journalist’s lawful professional activity

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