"Chernovik" journalists study their indictment in Dagestan

In Dagestan, four journalists of the "Chernovik" newspaper and their editor-in-chief were presented charges under Article 282 of the Russian Federation's Criminal Code, which assumes criminal liability for excitation of hatred or enmity, or humiliation of one's dignity. According to Magomed Magomedov, a "Chernovik" journalist, today his colleague Arthur Mamaev was summoned to the investigatory department of the investigatory committee at the prosecutor's office of Dagestan for getting acquainted with the materials of the case.

"Now all of us - Timur Mustafaev, Biyakay Magomedov, Arthur Mamaev, Nadira Isaeva and me - are acquainted with the materials of the case," Magomed Magomedov said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to his story, the prosecutor's office has chosen 10 publications from "Chernovik", but only four of them were examined. Linguistic examination was held by an expert named Fedyaev from the Krasnodar Territory.

"It's however interesting that it was written about Fedyaev that he was the chief expert-criminalist from the local MIA (Ministry of Internal Affairs), but the examination was carried out on the basis of the FSB. There is a complete mess there. Fedyaev wrote his opinion on several our articles, then, on the basis of this opinion, a criminal case was initiated, and then, a repeated examination was held, nobody knows where; it looks like also there - in Krasnodar. And on the basis of these examinations, they concluded that our articles have attributes of Article 282, stipulating kindling of social, religious and other hatred," said Magomed Magomedov.

The newspaper articles, which interested the prosecutor's office, were on the work of law enforcement bodies and general policy of power agencies in the Caucasus. The "Chernovik" articles described not only special operations, but also covered the facts, when militiamen kidnapped people, and did not admit advocates when detainees were tortured.

"We wrote about it in several articles of different topicality. For example, my article told about the operational tactics of special agencies in their operative-search activities and receipt of information. Mamaev's article was based on the data from the All-Russian Centre of Public Opinion Studies, summing up the population poll about people's trust and mistrust to the militia. Prices were quoted in the shadow market for purchase of this or that position in different MIA structures and subdivisions. And the prosecutor's office found that this was discrimination of law enforcement bodies," said Magomed Magomedov.