[JURIST] A lawmaking committee in the Russian parliament is considering legislation to tackle the country's increasing problem with racism and extremism, according to the chairman of committee in the State Duma [official website, in Russian]. The lower parliamentary house is reacting to recent events in Russia [JURIST news archive] indicating an increase in extremist activity, including deadly attacks on dark-skinned foreigners and an attack on a Moscow synagogue [BBC report] by a man carrying a knife. The list of proposed laws include imposing harsher punishments for the distribution of extremist materials on the Internet and to the media and making recruiting to extremist groups a crime. Before the Duma committee's proposals can be debated before the entire house of parliament, they must be reviewed by the Russian government and the Constitutional Court [backgrounder]. AP has more.