MOSCOW, May 5 (RAPSI) – The State Council of Russia’s Udmurt Republic has submitted a bill, prohibiting media from covering information related to suicides, to the State Duma, the database for the lower house of parliament reads on Friday.

Authors of the bill propose to amend the Article 4 of the Russian Law on Mass Media by adding a provision that prohibits media and telecommunication networks from disseminating information regarding methods of committing suicide, conditions and circumstances of suicides, and direct or indirect calls to commit suicides. Under the bill, bloggers are also to follow the proposed prohibition.

The bill also introduces changes to the Law on protecting children from negative and harmful information.

According to authors of the bill, these measures will help with lowering number of suicides in Russia citing example of Austria and drastically lowered number of such tragic incidents in the country after media stopped covering those incidents.