The miners lost the case to the head of VTsIOM. He compared the protesters to shit

The Ostankino Court of Moscow rejected a claim for the protection of honor and dignity, which miners from the city of Gukovo in the Rostov region filed against the head of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center Valery Fedorov.

The reason for the lawsuit was Fedorov's comment about the statement of TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, who called the participants in anti-government rallies "two percent of shit." In an interview with the Dozhd TV channel, the head of the VTsIOM said that "there is much more crap."

The miners from Gukovo protested against wage delays. They considered Fedorov's words insulting and demanded an apology from him.

In court, the representative of the plaintiffs, Kirill Serdyukov, argued, with reference to the expert's opinion, that the head of VTsIOM insulted a group of people - Russians opposed to the authorities. “People who have not received a salary for three years do not ask for anything. They seek one thing: moral satisfaction. So that they are not called a vile word, ”said Serdyukov.

The lawyer for the head of VTsIOM, Alexander Ivanov, argued that Fedorov's statement did not apply to any group of people.

The Dozhd TV channel was a co-defendant in the lawsuit. The miners asked him to publish a refutation of Fedorov's words. The head of the Dozhd's legal service, Ekaterina Nazarova, insisted that the head of the VTsIOM expressed an opinion, and did not disseminate defamatory information that could be verified to be true.

“We listened to the huge incoherent speech of the representative of Fedorov and realized that they just want to drown us in casuistry. We also realized that Fedorov was not going to apologize. But he must do it. This word expressed the attitude of the authorities towards ordinary people. If it had been different, then there would have been no protests,” said plaintiff Tatyana Avacheva.

RBC