The Middle Volga Department of Rosokhrankultura issued a warning to two newspapers

The Middle Volga Territorial Administration of the Federal Service for Supervision of Compliance with Legislation in the Sphere of Mass Communications and the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Rosokhrankultura) issued a warning to the editors of the newspaper "New Times in Saratov" for publishing materials called "Triumph of the Will" in No. 3 (212) dated January 26 -01.02. 2007

At the end of January 2007, the Academic Council of Saratov State University (SSU) filed a lawsuit against this publication. According to the plaintiffs, the newspaper "specially arranged a photograph of the meeting of the SSU Academic Council, held on January 25 of this year and dedicated to the results of 2006, and a photograph of the Nazi Party Congress in Hitler's Germany" .

The SSU appeal states that in the published material "the swastika in the upper right corner of one of the 'pictures' correlates with another photograph, creating an outlandish context, crowned with the title "Triumph of the Will" (the title of a documentary film shot by Hitler's personal order about the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in 1934)" .

The plaintiffs consider the appearance of the article "as a planned scandalous action, the purpose of which is obvious: once again to try at any cost to discredit Saratov University and its administration in the eyes of the public" .

On February 6, 2007, a press conference was held at SSU, during which representatives of the university accused New Times of propagating the ideas of fascism. During the event, a screen placed behind the backs of the speakers showed footage from the film "Triumph of the Will", published in the newspaper.

Meanwhile, in the publication, the activities of the Academic Council of the SSU were compared with the activities of the NSDAP. This comparison was negative, and the authors of the article did not promote fascism. However, the plaintiffs went to court not in connection with the insult, but in connection with the propaganda of the ideas of fascism.

As a result, Rosokhrankultura considered the publication in Novye Vremya to be a use of the media to carry out extremist activities and issued a warning to the newspaper.

On the same basis, a warning was issued to the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda - Ulyanovsk" for publishing the article "Ulyanovites decided to take up machine guns" in N 12 (23845) of 01.27.2007. one of the rally participants is quoted as saying: “I think we need to move on to decisive action. At least two or three months without paying a penny to public utilities! And if they turn off the water and electricity, we’ll go to the dugouts. I go regularly, but there’s no point. Machine guns must be taken in hand. This will be a serious conversation . "

The authors of the report in no way expressed solidarity with the author of the call to pick up machine guns.

Sources

• Saratov State University intends to go to court over one of the publications in the press // Interfax-Povolzhye. 2007. January 30.
• "Public spanking" of journalists failed // Look-info. 2007. February 6.
• Warnings issued by the territorial departments of Rosokhrankultura to media editorial offices for violating Article 4 of the Law of the Russian Federation "On the Mass Media" in 2007. // Website of Rosokhrankultura. 2007. DB.