Tkachenko's committee proposed to define "hate speech" in law

The parliamentary Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy is to spell out the concept of “hate language” in the draft law on audiovisual services. This was stated by the chairman of the profile committee Oleksandr Tkachenko during the committee meeting on October 29, as Ukrinform reported.

“We saw some member of our committee (MP from the European Solidarity faction Sofia Fedina - ed.) used, so to speak, a language of hatred against top officials of the state. I do not think it is appropriate for the MPs, the members of our committee, especially. And now I would like to see such manifestations of hate speech fade into the past. Obviously, we will use this incident to further explain in the law on audiovisual services what hate speech means is it is used by the mass media, as well as by the figures who perform public functions, including people's deputies, ” Tkachenko said.

As the newspaper reminded, on October 28, the deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, Oleksander Kachura (People's Servant Faction), said that he had filed a complaint to the General Prosecutor’s Office and State Bureau of Investigations against the MP Sofiya Fedina due to her negative statements about the head of state.

The MP Sophia Fedina expressed outrage over the way Zelensky spoke to volunteer fighters in the village Zolote in Luhansk region, adding that the President was behaving as if he considered himself as immortal.

On October 26, Zelensky spoke to a group of armed men in the village of Zolote in Luhansk region, and "some of the conversations turned out to be emotional". This conversation caused outrage of the volunteers’ units on social networks.

As IMI informed, the NGOs "Institute of Mass Information" and " Detector Media " have prepared their proposals on the most important aspect of the media bill which is relative to audiovisual media services (Mass Media Code), that is being worked out by a working group at the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Information and Information Policy.

On October 25, during the National Media Talk forum the deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy Mykyta Poturayev said that in December the parliament can adopt a bill on media services (audiovisual services) in the first reading, the bill is to specify whether internet portals are or not mass media.