22 June 2011, 23:00
Volgograd Region: journalists wins lawsuit against City Duma Chairman
Court granted the lawsuit of three journalists of the newspaper "Novoe Vremya" (New Time) against Anatoly Antontsev, the Chairman of Mikhailov City Duma, who did not let the correspondents of this newspaper to attend the City Duma session.
On March 23 Antontsev did not let the correspondent of the "Novoe Vremya" to the City Duma session, where the head of the city district was to report on the work done in 2010. Journalists considered that Anatoly Antontsev violated at once several articles of the Federal Law "On Mass Media", which allow journalists to visit state agencies and local government administration and to make records there.
The defendant reasoned the rejection of journalists' admission that the City Duma session room had not enough seats for all journalists. On June 21 the court held Mr Antontsev's action to have been illegal, stated press release of the Centre for Media Rights Protection, which was received by the "Caucasian Knot".
Earlier, Antontsev himself told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he rejected to let the journalists attend the session because they had no accreditation.
