Russian church official offers to ban obscene language in public places

Natalya Mihailova | 08 May 2014
Moscow, May 7, Interfax - Unquotable vocabulary should be banned not only in mass media, cinema and literature, but in public places as well, the Moscow Patriarchate official believes.
Russian church official offers to ban obscene language in public places

“It is important that we don’t hear obscene language not only in radio stations, from the stage or TV screen, but in public places as well. It would be correct that punitive measures are applied to those who speak using such words in restaurants, in the streets, especially in presence of children,” head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk told Interfax-Religion in his interview.

Noting that unprintable abuse “makes even a handsome person ugly for people around him,” he stated that usage of foul language in every day speech “has become almost an ordinary thing in all layers of society, among men and women, teenagers and old people.”

“Using abuse language in every day speech spoils language, which is a possession of our nation, a thousand-year treasure conveyed to us by our predecessors. But what is most important focusing on intimate topic in such awful expressions perverts human soul,” the hierarch stressed.

He also said that using abuse words in children’s presence is a blasphemy.

On May 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law envisaging punitive fines for using unquotable vocabulary in TV and radio broadcasts, cinema, literature and media. It is supposed that the law will enter into force on July 1, 2014. It will not be applied to the production made before this term.

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