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Russia's Party of People’s Freedom loses defamation lawsuit

One of the plaintiffs is opposition leader Alexey Navalny

Alexey Navalny and other Russian opposition politicians (archive) Pavel Bednyakov/TASS

Alexey Navalny and other Russian opposition politicians (archive)

© Pavel Bednyakov/TASS

NOVOSIBIRSK, December 17. /TASS/. The central district court of Novosibirsk (East Siberia) did not confirm as discrediting the city mayor’s claims the opposition’s Democratic Coalition was financed from abroad.

One of the plaintiffs is opposition leader Alexey Navalny, TASS reports from the court on Thursday.

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"The court’s decision is to leave unsatisfied the claim by Alexey Navalny and the regional branch of the Republican Party of Russia - Party of People’s Freedom (PARNAS)," Judge Yulia Piotrovskaya announced.

On August 27, the proceedings were stopped till results of a linguistic examination of the mayor’s speech about the threat of an "Orange Revolution" coming from the Democratic Coalition. The examination was made at the Siberian forensic studies. The results were voiced at the hearing on Thursday by a plaintiff - lawyer of the PARNAS Party Vyacheslav Gimadi.

"According to the examination results, the disputable statements made by the defendant contain statements about facts and events […] Those are not value judgements. Thus, the burden of proving those facts are true to life is on the defendants," the lawyer told reporters. "We will study the court decision, and I believe we'll argue it. But anyway, it is a victory already. Since realistically, the mayor rejected his own words."

On June 30, Novosibirsk’s Mayor Anatoly Lokot told a meeting of the Public Council the Democratic Coalition, where PARNAS is a member, is financed from abroad, plans an "Orange Revoluion," and pays 150 rubles (about $2) per vote.

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Russia's domestic policy

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