Russia Banning Nazis

From RT:
"Nazi propaganda to be banned in Russia"

Russian senators are drafting a bill on prohibiting the glorification of Nazi crimes and the usage of any Nazi or similar symbols and gestures in the country.  Violation of the law will be punishable by a fine from 300,000 rubles (about US$9,500), corrective labor or up to two years in jail. The will be submitted to the State Duma by the end of the year, writes Izvestia daily.  So far, Russia has had no specific anti-Nazi law.  “This issue has not been given due attention within the past 20 years,” one of the authors of the legislation, Konstantin Dobrynin, told the paper. As a result of that, Nazism has become an everyday thing and many people equate it to patriotism. On November 4, when Russia celebrated the Unity Day, nationalists staged the so-called Russian March in Moscow. Back then, the senator noted, the police detained 25 people wearing Waffen-SS uniforms and chanting the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil”. The bill will define what Nazism, Nazi rehabilitation and criminals are. It will also clarify what symbols and gestures are considered Nazi “or similar” and, therefore, cannot be used within the country. Scientific literature and fiction will not be subject to the ban, the senator underlined. The evaluation of violations will be carried out by two commissions – state and public – which will work independently from each other. The senators also suggest setting up a council that would counter the rehabilitation of Nazi crimes and monitor the situation.  The lower house of parliament has welcomed the initiative as timely. MP from the State Duma’s Committee on Nationalities Mikhail Markelov believes the lawmakers should go even further and prohibit free distribution of books which glorify Nazism. Only specialists and historians should have access to such literature, he stated.

^ I agree that Russia (and every country around the world) should ban Nazi symbols, etc, but think it should go a step farther and also ban Soviet symbols as the USSR was alike Nazi Germany: both had labor camps, both killed millions of its own citizens as well as those from countries they occupied, both glorified the dictatorship of one man and both did away with basic freedoms. I see very little difference in the two countries other than one lasted 12 years and one 74 years. ^

http://rt.com/politics/nazi-crime-ban-law-751/