Mayor of Murmansk accuses editor for insults
Mayor of Murmansk Sergey Subbotin, who was accused for censorship and threats by the editor in a Murmansk news paper, calls the allegations a lie and has reported the editor to the police for insults.
The incident is probably connected to conflicts between the United Russia dominated Murmansk City Council and the independent Mayor, Russian newspaper Kommersant writes.
As BarentsObserver reported yesterday, the Chief Editor in the Murmansk newspaper Vecherni Murmansk Nataliya Chervyakova has accused the mayor for attempts on censorship and threats against her person.
The background for the incident was a story that her paper planned to publish, where the town authorities were accused for not fulfilling the government’s orders by failing to re-calculate the citizens’ payments for heating in 2009. The compensation for heating amount to 300 million RUB (app 7.5 million EUR). According to Chervyakova, Subbotin told her not to print the story, and when she refused, the mayor allegedly threatened both her and her family.
Subbotin calls Chervyakova’s accusations lies. According to his version of the story, Chervyakova came to his office to tell that she was forced by the City Council to print the story. Subbotin admits that he recommended the editor not to print the story if she doubted the trustworthiness of the facts in the story, Kommersant reads.
Sergey Subbotin believes that Chervyakova was directed to summon to yesterday’s press conference where she brought forward the accusations against him by Speaker of the Murmansk City Council Aleksey Veller, who also is Head of the town branch of Russia’s ruling party United Russia.
- I believe this is a result of the conflict between myself and the City Council, Subbotin told Kommersant. - Some of the council members are determined to remove me from the post.
Speaker Aleksey Veller confirms that there is a conflict between the council and the mayor: - Since Subbotin was elected a year ago, the town has fallen into a “municipal chaos”, he says and adds that the mayor is leading an active campaign against the City Council.
Governor of Murmansk Oblast Dmitry Dmitriyenko has not given any comments on the situation. Subbotin says that he and the governor cooperate in a “normal, constructive way”.
Sergey Subbotin was elected Mayor of Murmansk in March 2009. He ran as an independent candidate and received some 60 percent of the votes, while United Russia’s candidate Mikhail Savchenko got 35 percent. Then Governor of Murmansk Oblast Yury Yevdokimov openly expressed his support to Subbotin, and was forced to leave the post less than a week later.
