YNOT – Sergei Pryanishnikov, one of the founders of Russia’s adult entertainment industry, is furious with a domestic television network he says used portions of an interview with him out of context in order to make him look bad. Claiming an NTV documentary about pornography in Russia unfairly linked his movies with bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia, he has taken his dispute to the Russian Agency for the Legal and Judicial System.“I have no complaints about most of the interviews, but after me came a strange man who posed as my lawyer,” he told the agency, according to The Moscow News, an independent online newspaper. “This is not a man of my acquaintance. He said that he left me after I began to disseminate bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia. I am not and never have been engaged in anything like this, so you need to refute this information.”
Pryanishnikov wants 10 million rubles in compensation.
According to a Russian attorney, even though the country’s freedom of speech laws may protect the documentary producer’s point of view just as it protects Pryanishnikov’s adult content, NTV could be in trouble if Pryanishnikov can prove his allegations. The case is far from open and shut, the attorney said.
“The media has no right to pass on information without checking its legal accuracy,” lawyer Karen Nersisyan told GZT.ru. “Otherwise it will be very difficult to sue NTV. The rights and responsibilities of a journalist are to inform the public of meaningful information, and if the journalist has presented the facts correctly, referring to the source, the channel will not be liable for the words of an interviewee.
“Freedom of speech is not an empty formality,” Nersisyan added. “It assumes a legal guarantee of immunity.”
Pryanishnikov founded SP Company, a studio specializing in pornographic entertainment. In 2003, he sought election as governor of his hometown, St. Petersburg, based on a promise to make the capital another Amsterdam. He lost that race and another for the state duma.
