The Russian parliament has approved a law that allows Moscow to shut down Western news bureaus  

Following the shutdown of certain Russian state news outlets in the West, Russia’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday granting prosecutors the ability to close foreign media bureaus in Moscow if a Western country has been “unfriendly” to Russian media.

The bill, which passed the first reading in the Duma, also prohibits the circulation of articles or other materials from media that have been shut down by the prosecutor’s office. To become legislation, it must go through two more readings, be vetted by parliament’s upper house, and be signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Journalists from a media organization judged an offender under the bill would have their foreign ministry accreditation revoked, preventing them from working in the country.

The new bill adds to the difficulties faced by foreign media after Russia passed a legislation in March punishing what it called “fake” news about its troops.

“In the current geopolitical environment, the mass media has become a weapon of influence on society’s informational state,” the MPs wrote in the bill’s official explanatory note.

“According to the bill, a journalist and a foreign correspondent may lose their accreditation if the fact of unfriendly action is established by the application of restrictions on the distribution of Russian mass media working in a foreign country,” according to the note seen by Reuters.

The bill was introduced by powerful politicians, notably Andrei Lugovoy, who was prosecuted in absentia by British prosecutors for the poisoned murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The claims have been frequently refuted by Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has repeatedly chastised the West for stopping pro-Kremlin media sites such as Sputnik and RT from operating by revoking their broadcasting licenses and penalizing them, actions he claims demonstrate a disrespect for international law.

Also Read

‘We have to act,’ Biden says after the Texas slaughter but doesn’t elaborate

Following the massacre of at least 18 children and an adult in...