Russia to Decriminalise Domestic Violence

Violence170112 — An illustration from Jean-Jacques Grandville’s Cent Proverbes (1845) captioned “Qui aime bien châtie bien” (*Who loves well, punishes well*).

“A bill aimed at decriminalising domestic violence to preserve the ‘tradition of parental authority’ has easily passed through the first stage of approval in the Russian parliament,” Gabriel Samuels of the Independent reports. “Ultra-conservative MP Yelena Mizulina, who chairs a committee on family and women’s affairs, proposed the bill to have ‘battery within families’ taken out of Russia’s criminal code, removing the right of victims to press charges.”