2 NISKASAARI AND OTAVAMEDIA OY v. FINLAND JUDGMENT THE FACTS I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 6. The first applicant was born in 1952 and lives in Helsinki. The applicant company has its seat in Helsinki. 7. The first applicant is a journalist for a weekly magazine, Seura, which is published by the applicant company. 8. On 16 March 1998 and 19 November 2001 respectively the Finnish national public service broadcasting company broadcast two TV documentaries in its MOT series which concerned mould-infested houses and the protection of forests. They were made by several reporters, including Mr M.B. who was the complainant at the origin of criminal proceedings that were subsequently brought against the first applicant (“the complainant”) (see paragraph 12 below). 9. On 18, 19 and 23 March 2002 the first applicant criticised on two separate internet discussion sites, namely on the “Ylevi” site maintained by the Green League (Vihreä liitto, Gröna förbundet) and the “Journalism” site maintained by Tampere University, the manner in which these two documentaries had been made. He wrote, inter alia, that: “[The complainant] is a fanatic warrior of the faith for whom facts are just in the way. He has indisputably been caught at cold, intentional lying.” “[The complainant] in fact claimed that the house was healthy but that one cheating company doing mould inspections had managed to find some insignificant mould spots because of which a completely unnecessary court case was initiated. ... Contrary to [the complainant’s] assurances, N.N.’s former house was rotten. ... [The complainant] must have known that. He is thus lying cold-bloodedly and intentionally. ... He thus knew that [the expert] lied but he let it happen.” 10. On 31 May 2002 the first applicant published a four-page article in Seura magazine, which is one of the biggest nationwide family magazines in Finland, on similar lines. The article had been approved by a lawyer before publication. The article included passages such as: “[The complainant] claimed that over 10% of the Finnish forest area was already protected and that conservationists demanded that an additional 10-15% of the forest area in Southern Finland should be preserved. These figures are fabricated.... S.S. thus said in [the documentary] the complete opposite of what her research showed and what was stated in her grant application. When I interviewed [the complainant], he admitted that he had known about the grant and the 1993 research. Still he accepted S.S.’s clearly groundless testimony in the documentary.” 11. On 5 July 2002 Seura magazine published a two-page reply in which the reporters who had made the documentaries in question replied to the first applicant’s criticism. In response to this reply, the magazine published a page-long counter-reply by the first applicant.