MOSCOW, March 11 (RAPSI) — The State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation has recommended that legislative amendments introducing criminal liability for humiliation of honor and dignity of veterans of the Great Patriotic War should be adopted in the second reading.

The liability introduced by the amendments has already been in force as to the rehabilitation of Nazism and involves imprisonment for up to five years and sets a fine of up to 5 million rubles ($68,000 at the current exchange rate). There is a general rule that the minimum threshold of liability makes two months in detention and, accordingly, 5,000 rubles ($68), according to an author of the amendments, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya.

Yarovaya said that the changes in the legislation are to be introduced for the purpose to prevent illegal actions aimed at denying the fact that the value of the heroic deeds of the veterans for all citizens of Russia and the world is not diminished by the passage of time.

Among the authors of the amendments are also the Chair of the State Duma's Committee on Defense Vladimir Shamanov, Chair of the Committee on Informational Policy Alexander Khinshtein and his First Deputy Sergey Boyarsky; the lawmakers from all other political parties represented in the lower house of Russia’s Parliament joined those deputies from the United Russia party. Among them are the First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Ivan Melnikov (Communist Party), member of the State Duma Committee on Security and Corruption Control Andrey Lugovoy (LDPR), and First Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation Mikhail Yemelyanov (Just Russia).