(CJES/IFEX) – Andrei Mikhailov, founder of “Khronograf Togliatti”, the only independent publication in Togliatti, a city in the Samara region, has reported that serious pressure is being exerted on the newspaper. Mikhailov told CJES a defamation lawsuit was filed against the newspaper with the Togliatti Central District Court by Vladimir Avetisyan, managing director of the […]
(CJES/IFEX) – Andrei Mikhailov, founder of “Khronograf Togliatti”, the only independent publication in Togliatti, a city in the Samara region, has reported that serious pressure is being exerted on the newspaper.
Mikhailov told CJES a defamation lawsuit was filed against the newspaper with the Togliatti Central District Court by Vladimir Avetisyan, managing director of the Russian holding company UES of Russia, seeking 100,000 rubles (approx. US$3800) from the newspaper in moral damages. The defendants in the case are Mikhailov, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Valery Shemyakin, and journalist Yegor Kosherov. [UES is the largest energy-producing company in Russia.]
“The plaintiff did not like an article by Kosherov published in the 4 September 2006 edition of the newspaper. In that article, the author tried to describe [UES’s] history of capital accumulation, its methods of enterprise takeover for business expansion, [which he found in the course of] his journalistic investigation,” said Mikhailov.
On 18 January, the court found the publication defamatory to the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to pay the plaintiff moral damages in an amount of 100,000 rubles. In addition, the newspaper was ordered to publish the text of the ruling and a retraction of the information given in the article.
Mikhailov disagrees with the ruling, as he believes the newspaper has the right to state its opinion. Besides, he does not believe the article was defamatory to the plaintiff in any way. “The ruling was very predictable. The thing is that the real masters of the Samara region and Togliatti are those who represent RAO UES of Russia, who control all major enterprises in the region and lobby their people to secure their appointment as public and court officials. For this reason, we intend to request that our case be tried by a jury,” said Mikhailov.
Mikhailov also said the newspaper often runs stories on energy issues and the way representatives of the energy sector control political structures, which representatives of this business naturally do not like. “We are under constant pressure. The printing house in Togliatti has refused to print our newspaper. We have to print the paper in Samara, which creates additional expenses for us. Vladimir Avetisyan has recently become head of the Samara division of Rospechat, a large press distributor. And right after that happened we received a letter saying that the contract for the distribution of our paper had been cancelled,” said Mikhailov.
