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New law targeting 'LGBT propaganda' introduced in Russia
Proposed fines for promoting non-traditional sexual relations could exceed $160,000
FILE PHOTO: Participants hold a rainbow flag commonly known as the LGBT pride flag during the Gay Pride demonstration in Field of Mars. © Igor Russak / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Russian lawmakers are considering a new law targeting "LGBT propaganda." It would provide for fines of up to $160,000 for promoting non-traditional sexual relations. The draft legislation was submitted to Russia’s State Duma on Tuesday and is currently being reviewed by the state-building and legislation committee.
It proposes to amend an existing administrative law, which restricts information promoting, what are regarded as, non-traditional sexual relations among minors. The new law would pronounce parts of the old legislation obsolete and impose administrative responsibility for LGBT messaging in general.
An explanatory note attached to the document notes that “family, motherhood and childhood in their traditional understanding, which comes from our ancestors, are the values that ensure the continuous change of generations, act as a condition for the preservation and development of a multinational people, and therefore need special state protections.”
The bill would introduce fines for propaganda aimed at “forming non-traditional sexual attitudes, the attractiveness of non-traditional sexual relations, a distorted idea of the social equivalence of traditional and non-traditional sexual relations, and the imposition of information about non-traditional sexual relations, causing interest in such relations.”
As long as those actions do not constitute a criminal offense, it is proposed to introduce fines for members of the public of between 40,000 and 50,000 rubles ($660-$830), and penalties of between 100,000 and 500,000 ($1,660-$8,300) for officials. Legal entities could face fines of between one million and five million rubles ($16,600-$83,000) or a suspension of activities for up to 90 days.
The punishments would be more severe if the suspected violations were carried out with the use of mass media or the internet, in which case the fines would range from 100,000 and 500,000 rubles ($1,660- $8,300) for ordinary citizens, 500,000 to one million rubles ($8,300-$16,600) for officials, and up to 10 million ($166,000) for legal entities.
Foreign citizens are also mentioned in the bill, as they could also face fines of between 40,000 and 100,000 rubles ($660-$1,660) or from 100,000 to 500,000 ($1,660- $8,300) if they use the internet for the promotion of such relationships. Alternatively, foreign citizens or people without citizenship could face a 15-day administrative arrest followed by expulsion from the Russian Federation.
The bill’s authors note that, while one of the key principles of a democratic state is the reasonable protection of the rights of minorities, “at the same time, the threats arising from the imposition of foreign standards that break the generally accepted way of life in the field of family and marriage begs the question about a need to protect the culture of the majority, including by introducing additional legal regulation.”
It is also noted that the draft legislation does not prohibit or condemn non-traditional sexual values or public discussions on the topic in a “neutral context,” and does not intend to infringe on personal freedoms and people’s rights to determine their sexual orientation and express themselves in a legal manner.
Toronto's (incel) van attacker sentenced to life in prison
Consecutive Life sentences ruled unconstitutional in Canada's
criminal-friendly Supreme Court
Published12 minutes ago
Police inspect a van suspected of being involved in a collision injuring at least eight people at Yonge St. and Finch Ave. on April 23, 2018 in Toronto, Canada.
GETTY IMAGES
The man responsible for a deadly van attack in Toronto four years ago has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
The 29-year-old killer was found guilty last year of murdering 10 people and attempting to murder 16.
Justice Anne Malloy delivered her sentence in a crowded Toronto court filled with victims' loved ones.
Eight women and two men died after the killer ploughed a van down a busy pavement.
Another woman, Amaresh Tesfamariam, 65, died years later in connection with injuries sustained in the attack on 23 April 2018. Justice Malloy said at Monday's hearing that she considered her the 11th victim of the man's crimes.
Throughout the ruling last year, Justice Malloy refused to name the attacker, referring to him instead as John Doe, and said she would not give him the notoriety "he sought from the start".
The man rented the van some three weeks before he used it as a weapon on a major Toronto street. He told investigators he had set out to kill as many people as possible and that he drew inspiration from the misogynistic "incel" movement of mostly online groups of young men who are angry at their lack of sexual activity.
They blame women for refusing to have sex with them as if it was their right.
His victims included 80-year-old grandmother Dorothy Sewell, 45-year-old single mother Renuka Amarasinghe and Ji Hun Kim, 22, a student from South Korea.
Asked by investigators how he felt about the harm he had caused, the attacker replied at the time: "I feel like I accomplished my mission."
Later, facing charges of first-degree murder, his lawyers argued he was not criminally responsible due to his autism spectrum disorder.
Justice Malloy dismissed this claim last year, saying the attack was the "act of a reasoning mind".
"Lack of empathy for the suffering of victims, even an incapacity to empathise for whatever reason, does not constitute a defence," she said.
During the sentencing on Monday, over a dozen friends and family members of victims gave impact statements, describing how the crime has affected their lives.
"When I heard about her death, my whole world crashed down around me," said So Ra, who was walking with her friend, Sohe Chung, when they were both struck.
"I felt empty inside like I had a huge hole in my heart, which could not be filled."
Another victim impact statement took the form of a drawing made by the nine-year-old son of Renuka Amarasinghe. The image, which appeared to be drawn by crayon and contained no words, showed the boy with his late mother.
Consecutive life sentences unconstitutional in Canada
Prosecutors had attempted to have each death carry a 25-year sentence consecutively, meaning he would not be eligible for parole for 250 years.
But a separate Supreme Court case regarding a man who killed six people at a Quebec mosque ruled consecutive sentences unconstitutional, meaning the van attacker will be eligible for parole in 25 years.
Wickr, Amazon’s encrypted chat app, a candy store for paedos
The Amazon-owned encrypted messaging app Wickr is associated with child abuse material in many parts of the internet. Anson Chan for NBC News
June 10, 2022, 7:03 AM PDT
By Ben Goggin
Wickr Me, an encrypted messaging app owned by Amazon Web Services, has become a go-to destination for people to exchange images of child sexual abuse, according to court documents, online communities, law enforcement and anti-exploitation activists.
It’s not the only tech platform that needs to crack down on such illegal content, according to data gathered by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or NCMEC. But Amazon is doing comparatively little to proactively address the problem, experts and law enforcement officials say, attracting people who want to trade such material because there is less risk of detection than in the brighter corners of the internet.
NBC News reviewed court documents from 72 state and federal child sexual abuse or child pornography prosecutions where the defendant allegedly used Wickr (as it’s commonly known) from the last five years in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, using a combination of private and public legal and news databases and search engines. Nearly every prosecution reviewed has resulted in a conviction aside from those still being adjudicated. Almost none of the criminal complaints reviewed note cooperation from Wickr itself at the time of filing, aside from limited instances where Wickr was legally compelled to provide information via a search warrant. Over 25 percent of the prosecutions stemmed from undercover operations conducted by law enforcement on Wickr and other tech platforms.
These court cases only represent a small fraction of the problem, according to two law enforcement officers involved in investigating child exploitation cases, two experts studying child exploitation and two people who have seen firsthand how individuals frequently use Wickr and other platforms for criminal transactions on the dark web. They point to direct knowledge of child exploitation investigations and sting operations, interviews with victims and perpetrators of abuse, and interactions with individuals soliciting child sexual abuse material as evidence that Wickr is being used by many people who exploit children.
Posts linking Wickr and child sexual abuse material are also littered across the internet. On social media platforms such as Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter, NBC News found dozens of forums, accounts and blogs where hundreds of posts have been made soliciting minors, those who have access to them, or those interested in trading child sexual abuse material alongside Wickr screen names. No child sexual abuse imagery was viewed in the course of reporting this article.
“Wickr needs to do more in regards to identifying and taking steps to prevent child sexual abuse material being traded on their platform,” said John Shehan, vice president of NCMEC.
Other apps including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — all owned by Meta — use algorithmic detection methods to constantly scan unencrypted text and media uploaded to their platforms, such as content on a user’s profile, to find signs of child sexual abuse imagery. U.S. law requires that electronic communication service providers report known or discovered child sexual abuse material to NCMEC.
Meta’s reports to the center numbered in the millions in 2021: Facebook made 22,118,952 reports, Instagram made 3,393,654 reports, and WhatsApp made 1,372,696 reports. Experts said a high level of reporting was a positive thing because it signaled that a company was working proactively to detect child exploitation material on its platform.
Wickr has far fewer users than those apps but self-reported only 15 instances of child sexual abuse imagery, despite experts and law enforcement saying there’s clear use of the app by people trading such material online. Shehan said that there were around 3,500 reports about child sexual abuse material on Wickr that came from third parties not associated with Wickr — suggesting that the company itself isn’t doing the work to actively detect child pornography, but rather letting it exist on the platforms for users to discover and report themselves.
“It’s very clear that they’re not taking any proactive efforts on their own to identify this type of activity,” he said, referring to the numbers.
In a statement, an Amazon Web Services spokesperson said: “Amazon is committed to preventing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in every segment of our business, including Wickr, which maintains strict Terms of Use that clearly prohibit illegal activity. We act quickly on reports of illegal behavior, respond immediately to requests from law enforcement, and take the appropriate actions. Anyone found to be in violation of our terms is subject to account termination.”
"Wickr absolutely responds appropriately to, and cooperates with, law enforcement on these critical matters," the spokesperson said.
There is more on this story at NBC News.
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