MOSCOW, September 19 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova) – The Presnensky District Court of Moscow on Monday found famous Russian blogger Anton Nosik guilty of extremism and fined him 500,000 rubles (about $8,000), RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

The court ruled that Nosik had performed acts aimed at incitement of enmity and hatred towards a group of individuals named “the Syrians” on the ground of national origin and area basis. A judge noted that discrimination based on nationality, religion or race is inadmissible.

Nosik is going to appeal the ruling.

Earlier, prosecution demanded a two-year prison sentence for the blogger.

Nosik asked the court to acquit him. In the final speech he was hopeful for fair trial.

As previously reported, a criminal case against Nosik was opened after he had posted an article called “To wipe Syria off the map” on the Internet.  He was charged with incitement of hatred or enmity as well as violation of human dignity.

The blogger has pleaded not guilty insisting that the distributed information was his private opinion.

Nosik is a popular Russian blogger and startup manager. He earlier acted as an editor in various outstanding online news media outlets, a manager of Rambler search engine and blog office of Russian media company SUP which owns LiveJournal social networking service.