5.  The applicant was born in 1968 and lives in Suponevo, the Bryansk Region.
6.  The applicant has been editor of a weekly newspaper, Bryanskiye Budni (Брянские будни), since he founded it in 1999.
7.  On 9 August 2012 the applicant published an article in Bryanskiye Budni no. 658/31 headlined “Pity the birds” (“Птичек жалко”)[1], which he wrote under a pen name. In the article he discussed criminal proceedings which were pending against two men called Maksim Kosenkov and Ruslan Pogulyayev on charges of obtaining land by fraud. He also referred to witness statements in criminal proceedings against Anna Stregeleva, the former head of the regional department of the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Росимущество), which had concerned the misappropriation of other plots of land and ended with Ms Stregeleva’s conviction. According to those statements, several regional officials, including a deputy governor of the Bryansk Region, Nikolay Simonenko, had been involved to a certain extent in the events which had constituted the basis of the conviction. Criminal proceedings had been instituted against Mr Simonenko as well, but they had been discontinued and on 23 April 2012 the Bryanskiy District Court had awarded him compensation for non-pecuniary damage for wrongful prosecution. The article had a photograph next to it of Mr Simonenko and Mr Denin, the governor of Bryansk Region, in a room with other people.
8.  The article read as follows, in so far as relevant:
“Maksim Kosenkov and Ruslan Pogulyayev will be on trial in Bryansk. The lads wanted to replicate the deed of the Bryansk thieves from the local administration, but they lacked the power, although they had skills in abundance.
They concocted fake decrees from the Bezhitskiy District Administration on the parcelling of land for the construction of individual houses. They ‘certified’ the papers with makeshift stamps and took them to the Bryansk Region Department of the State Register (Росреестр). Here they were issued with [extracts from the State registry of real estate] in respect of nine plots of land. Try to register your property at that department. They will wear you down with requests for piles of papers. However, in this case the credulous clerks easily signed the documents after accepting the fakes. Isn’t that strange?
As established by the prosecutor’s office, the swindlers acquired property rights in this way in respect of plots of lands which belonged to the category of indivisible State property. Their market value exceeded 6,400,000 roubles. The lads face up to ten years’ imprisonment for this. Pity the birds. They could be doing good deeds, raising their kids. However, they got carried away by the example of the big Bryansk thieves and failed to take into account that the latter were protected from all sides – by the powers that be, the party, relations, and so on.
At least we know now what sentence Bryansk Region residents Denin and Simonenko could be serving. This newspaper has several times dealt with the material of the criminal case which led to Simonenko spending a year detained at Matrosskaya Tishina [the SIZO no. 1 remand prison in Moscow] and who happily got out with a million in compensation. It looks like very few people understood that material. We shall have to shake the dust off those volumes once more.
If you go from Bryansk to the village of Michurinskoe, before the village to the left you will see a field and an orchard which caught the fancy of the Bryansk thieves from the authorities (воры от власти). There are almost 66 hectares of land there. Having become skilled at the misappropriation of land, the thief-officials and a deputy decided to pocket that billion. And to multiply it. The thing is, they were going to build cottages there and sell them at triple the price. It is easy to turn a billion into three or five in that way.”
9.  The article further referred to witness statements in the criminal proceedings against Ms Stregeleva, which concerned the misappropriation of plots of land from orchards that constituted federal land. According to the article, it could be seen from the material in the criminal case that Deputy Governor Simonenko had said at a meeting that “the issue with the orchards was agreed upon with the governor”. The last paragraph of the article contained the following passages:
“Strangely enough, citizens Denin and Simonenko are still at large. Although we are talking about 66 hectares of expensive land. However, the Bezhitskiy lads may face up to ten years of prison time for a lesser crime. Can this be?...”
10.  Mr Simonenko brought an action for defamation against the applicant and sought damages of 300,000 Russian roubles (RUB). He stated, in particular, that the following passages were untrue and damaging to his honour and reputation: 1.  “However, they got carried away by the example of the big Bryansk thieves and failed to take into account that the latter were protected from all sides – by the powers that be, the party, relations, and so on”; 4.  “... Having become skilled at the misappropriation of land, the thief-officials and a deputy decided to pocket that billion. And to multiply it.”
11.  On 26 September 2012 the Bryanskiy District Court of the Bryansk Region dismissed the claim (“the Bryanskiy District Court”). The court noted that in the article the author had expressed an opinion and made suppositions with regard to procedural documents in the criminal case against Ms Stregeleva and the actions of certain participants in the proceedings. It further found that the first, third and fourth sentences quoted above could not be considered as damaging to the claimant’s honour and reputation as he was not the only official in the Bryansk administration and it was not clear from the article that the author had meant him exactly. The court also noted that the fourth sentence did not constitute an assertion and had neither a legal nor a literal meaning. As regards the second sentence, the court found that the claimant had failed to prove that he was the one referred to in the passage as many people with the surname Simonenko lived in the Bryansk region. There had also been other people apart from the claimant in the photograph published next to the article. Furthermore, the sentence in question had not contained information about any facts but had merely expressed the author’s opinion and his suppositions.
12.  Mr Simonenko appealed.
13.  On 27 November 2012 the Bryansk Regional Court set aside the judgment, allowed the claim against the applicant, ordered him to publish a retraction within fifteen days of the judgment’s entry into force, and awarded the claimant damages of RUB 5,000 (approximately 125 euros). It also ordered the applicant to pay fees of RUB 200.
14.  The appellate court found that the passages in question had definitely referred to Mr Simonenko as his photograph had been published next to the article. It also cited the use of the expressions “thieves from the local administration”, “thieves from the authorities” and “thief-officials” in connection with the criminal proceedings against Mr Simonenko. It further found that in the light of the introduction to the article, “Maksim Kosenkov and Ruslan Pogulyayev will be on trial in Bryansk. The lads wanted to replicate the deed of the Bryansk thieves from the local administration, but they lacked the power, although they had skills in abundance”, it was clear that the first, third and fourth sentences constituted assertions to the effect that the claimant had committed offences and had abused his official position for personal gain. The appellate court found that the second sentence, read together with the sentence “Strangely enough, citizens Denin and Simonenko are still at large”, constituted an assertion that Mr Simonenko should be punished for the offences he had committed. The information had thus been presented by the author as a statement of fact.
15.  The appellate court also noted that according to the dictionary, “thief” meant a person who stole or a criminal who practised theft. It went on to conclude that the above passages, which contained negative judgments, were insulting and discrediting to the moral character of the claimant. They had also diminished his business reputation, portrayed him negatively as a person engaged in criminal activity, as a State official who abused his powers for mercenary ends, and created a wrong perception about the claimant in the eyes of society, both as a citizen and as a deputy governor of the Bryansk Region. The appellate court therefore found that all four sentences in question had damaged the honour and reputation of Mr Simonenko.
16.  On 27 December 2012 the Bryansk Regional Court refused the applicant leave to lodge a cassation appeal.
17.  On an unspecified date Mr Denin also instituted defamation proceedings against the applicant on account of the following two passages from the article: 1.  “However, they got carried away by the example of the big Bryansk thieves and failed to take into account that the latter were protected from all sides – by the powers that be, the party, relations, and so on”;
18.  On 23 April 2013 the Bryanskiy District Court granted the claim. The applicant appealed.
19.  On 22 October 2013 the Bryansk Regional Court quashed the judgment on appeal and dismissed the claim. The court found that the first passage could not be considered as constituting a statement of fact but was rather a value judgment. Furthermore, the court considered that the passage could not be regarded as concerning the claimant specifically, since neither his name nor the position he held had been mentioned. The applicant had referred to “big Bryansk thieves”, and, given that the article contained comments on criminal proceeding instituted against other people from the Bryansk administration, it was impossible to regard the passage as relating specifically to Mr Denin. In the court’s view, that conclusion was not altered by the publication of Mr Denin’s photograph next to the article, since other people had appeared in the photograph as well. Accordingly, the passage in question could not be considered as defamatory in respect of the claimant. As regards the second passage, the court held that it could not be considered as defamatory either since it had not constituted a statement of fact but had rather been a supposition, which was reflected in the use of the word “could”.