Infamous forum nationalist claims nationalistic slurs as own "feelings", gets a reprieve

Charged with anti-Russian propaganda on the Web, Novosibirsk resident Taras Zeleniak, 31, faced a prison term of up to two years. Yesterday the court satisfied a motion by Zeleniak's lawyer Vladimir Melnikov to return the case for further investigation on the grounds that the accusation makes no references to any specific acts of wrongdoing. The criminal charges have been prompted by Zeleniak's comments posted at the www.proua.com forum. A linguistic examination has established that abuse of derogatory terms "katsap" and "moskal" fuels interethnic strife. Lawyer Melnikov insisted in court that a person may not be criminally prosecuted for one's "thoughts and feelings."