Conservative Russian lawmaker wants cops to investigate schoolchildren's naughty notebooks

Conservative lawmaker Yelena Mizulina, who heads the Duma's committee on family, women, and children, is drafting a formal request to the Attorney General to ask federal prosecutors to launch an investigation into the companies that manufacture notebooks for schoolchildren.

Mizulina says she regularly receives complaints from parents concerned that students' notebooks often contain images, inscriptions, and jokes not suitable for children. 

"Judging by the number of letters this committee has received from parents," Mizulina said, "the situation now looks like nobody is managing the enforcement of the law [to protect minors from information harmful to their health and development]."

“The nature of a child's mind is such that he or she understands everything literally. They're not able to guess the hidden meanings in a joke like this one, found in one of these notebooks: 'Quit smoking, and stand on skis, instead! You won't get cancer, you'll break your head!' We've already prepared a formal request addressed to the Attorney General," Mizulina said.

School notebooks have caused public scandals in Russia before. Recently, notebooks featuring Josef Stalin upset several groups, and, in spring earlier this year, a court in Orenburg banned the sale of notebooks featuring the slogans "Drink poison!" and "I hate school."

Yelena Mizulina is the author of many of Russia's recent conservative legislative initiatives, including the ban on so-called "gay propaganda" and the creation of a blacklist to ban Internet materials deemed "harmful to children."