MOSCOW, October 1 (RAPSI) – Russia’s State Duma has adopted in the first reading a bill envisaging refusal to serve mobile numbers unlawfully used in the territories of penal colonies and pretrial detention centers, according to a statement published on the official website of the lower house of the Parliament.

The bill envisages that heads of territorial directorates of the Russian penitentiary system are to have powers to request communications providers to terminate their services as to telephone numbers unlawfully used at the territories of penitentiary facilities and pretrial detention centers, the statement reads.

According to an explanatory note to the initiative, such requests are to be submitted to the providers not only to facilitate investigations, or in life-threatening situations, or where threats to the state, military, economic, informational, or ecological security of the Russian Federation are detected, but also in order to ensure the compliance with the regulations in force in the territory of penitentiary facilities.

The initiators of the draft law believe that the amendments they propose are not only to put an end to fraud via mobile communications, but also to deliveries of drugs and other prohibited substances to convicts, to organization of pressure on witnesses, and coordination of actions of criminals yet roaming free.