Tomorrow, claim of MUE Director against Novorossisk human rights activists will be considered

Tomorrow, on October 22, the Oktiabrskiy Court of Novorossisk will consider the claim of Sergey Novikov, Director of Municipal Unitary Enterprise "Information-Analytical Centre" (MUE "IAC") against the Novorossisk Committee for Human Rights (NCHR) on defence of his honour, dignity and business reputation. This was reported by Vadim Karastelyov, expert of the NCHR.

Let us remind you that Mr Novikov was dissatisfied with the fact that the NCHR had put him into the "cadre cadastre", which registers and presents to the public violations of citizens' rights, admitted by officials, and with the fact that in the cadastre Novikov was treated as an official.

"The story began this spring when the head of the NCHR addressed a letter to the pro-governmental newspaper 'Novorossisk Vesti', published by the MUE "IAC", with a request to print as a social ad an announcement about rendering of free-of-charge legal aid to the victims of the 'curfew'," Vadim Karastelyov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to Mr Novikov, he concluded that the letter was written with violation of the current legislation - it was addressed to the director of the newspaper, not of the MUE "IAC", and, consequently, he decided not answer to the letter.

Then, the human rights activists addressed the local prosecutor's office, which established the fact of violation of the federal law, regulating the order of considering citizens' applications, and passed a presentation on elimination of the admitted breach.

"Then the NCHR, on the basis of the official presentation made to Mr Novikov, disseminated a release about this incident entitled 'Novorossisk official was forced by prosecutor's office to answer'. Novikov believes that the publication had damaged his honour, dignity and business reputation. Besides, Novikov asks to delete from the 'cadre cadastre', run by human rights activists, the mentioning about the presentation of the prosecutor's office passed to him. The damage to his moral image by the NCHR's materials Novikov estimates as 15,000 roubles," said Karastelyov.