Journalistic community perplexed with verdict to Reznik

On January 23, participants of the press conference at the Central House of Journalists in Moscow discussed the guilty verdict passed to the Rostov journalist Sergey Reznik, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports. The speakers said that the guilty verdict to the journalist and blogger Sergey Reznik caused their bewilderment.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 22, 2015, the Lenin District Court of Rostov-on-Don found Sergey Reznik guilty of false denunciation and insult of officials and sentenced him to three years in a general security colony. Reznik, who has completely denied his guilt, was also awarded an additional penalty of a two-year ban on working for the media.

"We were shocked by the verdict, and especially by the fact that Reznik will be forbidden to engage in his professional activities for two years," said Nadezhda Azhgikhina, the Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia and the Vice-President of the European Federation of Journalists.

"Not a single expert has found that Reznik called the victim offensively, by using uncontrolled vocabulary. I am shocked by yesterday's verdict," Tumas Misakyan, a Reznik's advocate, said at the press conference, adding that "the reason for Reznik's prosecution is in his multiple critical articles about high-ranking bureaucrats."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.