Prosecutor's Office of Makhachkala sees slander of Dagestani leader by weekly "Nastoyascheye Vremya"

Today, Milrad Fatulaev, the editor-in-chief of the Dagestani weekly "Nastoyascheye Vremya" (Present Time), has received a statement of the Prosecutor's Office of the city of Makhachkala about initiation of an administrative case against him under the article of slander after publication of an article about introduction of the CTO (counterterrorist operation) regime in the village of Gimry, Untsukul District. The weekly's staff views it as pressure on the edition by national authorities.

Mr Fatulaev was served the statement about initiation of administrative procedure against him, when he was invited to Ibragim Alibekov, City Public Prosecutor of Makhachkala, as Ruslan Gereev, an employee of the weekly, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The statement says that Mustapa Genzhekhanov, the head of the legal department of the head of Dagestan, who is representing the interests of Magomedsalam Magomedov, had addressed the prosecuting authorities with an application about bringing the perpetrators to the statutory responsibility for dissemination of information, which discredits the honour and dignity of the head of Dagestan, in relation to the article by Nadira Isaeva "The Caucasus in the Lead", published in No. 4 (223) of the weekly "Nastoyascheye Vremya" on February 3, 2012.

As a result of the conducted check, Ibragim Alibekov has found out that Milrad Fatulaev, the editor-in-chief of the above weekly, had sanctioned the publication of the article "The Caucasus in the Lead" and thus failed to take measures to prevent defamation in mass media, and found in his actions attributes of an administrative offence, envisaged by part 4 of Article 5.60 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (dealing with defamation).

The statement notes that the materials of the case have been sent to the magistrate court of the judicial precinct No. 5 of the Kirov District of Makhachkala.

Ruslan Gereev believes that in this way the republic's authorities are putting pressure on the edition.

"This administrative pressure that the weekly 'Nastoyascheye Vremya' is facing in recent time has forced us to take steps in response. We have addressed the republic's Centre for Defence of Media Rights and several public organizations. Such actions are forcing us to get to the federal level of the information environment. Thus, such actions of the authorities are bringing the conflict outside the republic," said Ruslan Gereev.

Earlier, Mustapa Genzhekhanov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the above article said that President of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov had received a flash memory stick from the so-called "forest fighters" (Dagestan now sees more cases of delivery of flash-sticks: this type of memory device is used by militants for putting forward their claims to pay "for the jihad", - note of the "Caucasian Knot"), and in retaliation he introduced the CTO regime in Gimry, Untsukul District.

Mr Genzhekhanov has stressed that President of Dagestan is not authorized to introduce the CTO regime anywhere - it is the responsibility of federal agencies, and in this regard an appeal had been addressed to the Prosecutor's Office asking to check where the weekly had received that information from; since such information was defaming the honour and authority of the President of the Republic of Dagestan.