MOSCOW, April 11 (RAPSI) – A senator from Russia's Federation Council proposed to introduce criminal liability for insulting the national anthem of Russia, RIA Novosti reported on Monday.

Liability for insulting the anthem may be introduced for public performance of its distorted version.

Last week Russian authorities began an investigation of incident in Sevastopol where the original text of Russia’s anthem was substituted with a distorted version. Local media reported appearance of such text during the performance of the anthem on April 11 in Sevastopol Centre for Culture and Art.

According to senator Vadim Tulpanov, punishment for insulting the state anthem must be severely harshened. The Article 70 of Russian Constitution proclaims that coat of arms, flag and anthem have similar status as official symbols of Russian Federation. However, while there is a criminal liability for insulting coat of arms and flag, including potential one year sentence in prison, there are no such measures to protect the anthem. Current administrative punishments for insulting the anthem include fines of 3,000 rubles ($44.7) for a person, 7,000 rubles for officials ($104.4) and 150,000 ($2,238) rubles for organizations.

Tulpanov added that the Supreme Court of Russia has already approved introduction of criminal liability for insulting the official anthem, but insisted on defined terms for “inappropriate” performance of the anthem.

“Of course, no citizen will be arrested for bad musical sense or not knowing the anthem’s words,” Tulpanov added.