Ministry preparing higher penalties for abuse of emergency lines

The Ministry of the Interior is preparing a decree to tighten penalties for abuse of emergency lines, a practice that has become increasingly frequent. In the event of repeated abuse of an emergency line, the decree envisages the possibility of blocking the caller for up to 168 hours. In extreme cases, it will be possible to block the number completely. Operators on emergency lines handle around two million eight hundred thousand calls a year. About eighty percent of them fall into the category of so-called malicious calls, including calls containing vulgar abuse or people repeatedly calling and hanging up. Under the present legislation they can block the caller for twenty-four hours.