The police seized the circulation of "MK in Belgorod"

On September 29, 2005, the police confiscated the circulation of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets in Belgorod.

In the center of Belgorod, police officers stopped a car carrying a newspaper from a printing house in Voronezh, confiscated the circulation, and delivered it to two police departments. The circulation was confiscated, according to Kommersant of October 3, 2005, "for illegal agitation and slander" against Governor Yevgeny Savchenko, who heads the list of United Russia in the elections.

The newspaper's editor, Alexander Kalutsky, said that, according to his information, the police officers acted on the basis of a proposal from the Belgorod Regional Electoral Committee and a decision by the head of the Belgorod Internal Affairs Directorate, Nikolai Goncharov.

Since March 2005, the publisher of the newspaper "MK in Belgorod" has been Inteko-Agro LLC. At the beginning of the election campaign for the Belgorod Regional Duma, the local branch of the LDPR entered into an election alliance with Inteko CJSC, which is headed and controlled by the wife of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Elena Baturina.

In a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent, an officer of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs, who asked not to be named, lamented that "those in power are setting up police officers for the umpteenth time . " And the head of the LDPR campaign headquarters, Anton Morozov, said that the detention of the circulation is a continuation of the confrontation between the regional authorities and the LDPR-Inteko alliance. According to him, the Liberal Democrats on Friday appealed to the Supreme Court against the decision of the regional court to refuse registration, and also appealed to the regional prosecutor's office, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Central Election Commission with complaints about the actions of the police.

On October 6, 2005, a joint statement by the Union of Journalists of Russia and Moscow was published, which emphasizes that the arrest and destruction of the circulation of "MK in Belgorod" is a flagrant violation of the law.

"We insist that the Prosecutor General's Office immediately check all the circumstances of this case and consider the issue of bringing the perpetrators to justice ," the statement says.

Didenko L. Belgorod police defended the honor of the governor // Kommersant. 2005. October 3rd.

Sources

• Scandal in Belgorod // TVC. 2005. October 3rd.
• Joint statement of the Union of Journalists of Russia and Moscow // New Newspaper. 2005. No. 74.