Russian MPs have backed a controversial bill reducing the punishment for some forms of domestic violence in a crucial second reading, despite protests from rights groups.



The amendments reduce the penalty for violence against family members, including spouses and children, as long as it is a first offence and does not cause serious injury, making it punishable by a fine of up to 30,000 rubles (£400).

Violence against a family member that does not cause serious physical injury is currently defined as battery and punishable by up to two years in jail.

Last week Amnesty International appealed to Russia’s parliament not to pass the bill, condemning it as a “sickening attempt to trivialise domestic violence”.

Moscow city authorities this week refused permission for a rally organised by opponents of the bill with the slogan “Stop violence in the family; monsters should go to jail”.

After Wednesday’s passing, the bill needs to get through a third technical reading, expected on Friday, before it goes before the upper house and then to President Vladimir Putin for a final signature.

The bill’s authors say the new measure removes a legal anomaly and will reduce domestic violence by giving first-time abusers a chance to reform.

Conservative backers of the bill have nicknamed it the “law on slaps” and complain that domestic violence is punished harshly.

“If you slap your naughty child, you risk up to two years in jail. If your neighbour does the same, it would end with a fine,” one of the bill’s authors, Senator Yelena Mizulina, wrote on her site on Wednesday.

She said the current law allowed a criminal case to be opened on evidence from “a child in a huff against their parents”.

But lawyer Maxim Krupsky told RBK news site that “decriminalisation could untie the hands of people who potentially could commit domestic violence”.

Parliament on Wednesday threw out Communist party proposals to exclude attacks on pregnant women and children from decriminalisation.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, gave the bill apparent backing, telling journalists that “blowing out of proportion and calling for criminal responsibility for various manifestations of family relations would hardly be effective”.

According to the state statistics agency, in 2015 there were 49,579 crimes involving violence in the family, of those 35,899 involving violence against a woman.