A Rosbalt correspondent reported being beaten during a survey at the Rostov Center “E”

Rosbalt correspondent in Rostov-on-Don Dmitry Remizov reported being beaten and threatened during a survey at the Center for Countering Extremism. Rosbalt writes about this with reference to its journalist.

According to Remizov, he was invited to be interviewed at Center “E” in a criminal case regarding the preparation of a terrorist attack in Rostov. The journalist went there without a lawyer. During the conversation, two law enforcement officers asked whether Remizov knew this or that person. Later he was asked about a certain Maxim Smyshlyaev, the journalist replied that he did not remember such a person.

“The policeman began to demand that I say that I knew this man in 2009 and testify about him. Then the policeman hit me on the head three times. Following this, he began to threaten that he could bring me to criminal responsibility, showed me a dagger with a fascist swastika: he said that the dagger had been confiscated from some Nazis, and he would set such Nazis against me who would deal with me. I continued to insist that I did not remember the person named to me. After the interview was completed, the second policeman took me by car to the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. In the corridor, he threatened physical harm, saying: “We will meet again,” Remizov said.

After being interviewed at Center “E,” the journalist was also interrogated by the investigative department of the Investigative Committee as a witness.

“After that, I went to the hospital to check my health: after the blows I had a severe headache,” Remizov added.

As the regional publication don24.ru reports with reference to the press service of the regional Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the police are conducting an investigation into the publication of the beating of a Rosbalt journalist.

Mediazona wrote about 33-year-old Maxim Smyshlyaev, whom investigators call an accomplice of 17-year-old Ukrainian Artur Panov, a follower of the Red Army Faction, arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack.