As many countries face public protests over insults by the authors of the anti-Islam ‘Innocence of Muslims” video, the Russian Lower House took the first move to outlaw insults to religions.

As many countries face public protests over insults by the authors of the anti-Islam ‘Innocence of Muslims” video, the Russian Lower House took the first move to outlaw insults to religions, Russia Today news website reported.

The State Duma approved a special address ‘On protection of the religious feelings of the citizens of Russia,’ which was submitted jointly by all four parliamentary parties.

MP Yaroslav Nilov of the LDPR party, the head of the Lower House’s Legislative Committee, presented the document, citing a number of “sacrilegious, outrageous, obscurantist situations and events” that took place in 2012, including the assassination of two Muslim clerics in Russia’s internal republics of Tatarstan and Dagestan.

He argued that Russia was facing a campaign aimed at destabilizing the country, and called for the Lower House to take urgent measures to curb the growing problem.

Deputy Chair of the State Duma, MP Sergey Zheleznyak, claimed that it was necessary to institute specific punishments for insulting believers on the Internet, especially on blogs and social networks.

Earlier, Russia’s Prosecutor’s Office has prepared a lawsuit to ban the US-made offensive film, saying that it hurt religious feelings of the believers and should be labeled as extremist.

However, Russia’s mass communications officials were ordered to prevent the dissemination of the scandalous video.

So far, the profile committee of the Lower House suggested administrative offenses for insulting believers’ feelings, punishable by fines of 100,000 to 200,000 rubles ($3,000 to $6,000).