The court fined an official in Volgograd for her attempt to involve priests in pre-election campaigning

Regional Public prosecutor's office reports that magistrate of magistracy No 109 in Volgograd fined to three thousand rubles Deputy Head of Administration of Sovietsky district of the city who asked the priests to campaign the congregation for one of the parties at State Duma election.

It should be reminded that in the middle of November Alexey Pluzhnikov, Prior of the parish of Holly Apostles Peter and Paul in Sovietsky district of Volgograd, wrote in his blog that the municipal authorities were trying to influence the congregation through the clergy on the eve of State Duma election. The priest pointed out that the official suggested the priesthood to convince the congregation to vote for "United Russia". The incident caused a broad public response.

Upon the results of monitoring the information on the Net, Public prosecutor's office of Volgograd initiated an inspection and established that on November, 16, Deputy Head of regional Administration in her talk to the priesthood in her office suggested them to "draw the congregation's attention to expression of their will on December, 4" when talking to them.

Administrative proceeding was started on the fact according to clause 5.45 of Code of administrative violations (the use of the advantages of a municipal official for the purpose of putting forward or electing of a candidate or list of candidates), web-site of Volgograd Public prosecutor's office reports.

Earlier, Oleg Matveichev, Vice-Governor of Volgograd region for inner policy, declared that the appeal to the priests was the local officials' private initiative.

The position of the fined official is unknown yet.

Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" reported that during State Duma election campaign communists of Volgograd sent a message to Public prosecutor of Volgograd region Vladimir Churikov asking him to inspect the information that the convicts of investigative isolation wards No 1 and No 4 of Volgograd were forced to vote for "United Russia". The regional Public prosecutor's office carried out the inspection but found no evidence confirming this information.