News

Four young people have been kidnapped from the village of Gekhi in the Urus-Martan District of Chechnya, local residents told human rights defenders.

After concluding a deal with investigators, Moris Machalikashvili, a participant of the clashes with the police outside the Georgian Parliament, has pled guilty and was sentenced to two years of conditional imprisonment.

Abkhazian MPs have adopted a law on declaring officials' incomes, expenses and property in the final reading. The activists demanding the adoption of the law have stopped their action in central Sukhumi.

Zarifa Sautieva, a participant of a rally in Magas, was subjected to inhuman treatment, and she was arrested by political motives, lawyers of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" stated in a complaint filed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

On the 20th anniversary of the assault of Grozny, eyewitnesses of those events recalled how residents of the Chechen capital had to hide in basements from continuous shelling attacks.

The Prosecutor's Office succeeded in seeking the cancellation of the decision to submit the materials of the case on the dispersal of demonstrators to advocates of the former president of Armenia.

The positions of the Azerbaijani troops in villages on the border with Armenia and in the Karabakh conflict zone were shelled 24 times within 24 hours, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported.

The premiere screening of a documentary in memory of Aishat Magomedova was held in Moscow. The film made people think about the hard lives of women living in the mountains of Dagestan, the audience notes.

On February 5, the Nalchik City Court pronounced a decision to detain four alleged participants of clashes with law enforcers at a rally in Magas. Information about the new detentions came as a surprise to residents of Ingushetia, notes advocate Magomed Bekov.

On February 5, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (known as MGIMO) hosted a seminar entitled "Gender in Northern Caucasus: new challenges, everyday life, and stereotypes (between tradition, religion and modernity)".

The residents of new houses, who have moved there from the landslide zone of the Nozhai-Yurt District, said that after moving in, they now have to eliminate the results of poor-quality repairs, while the school and hospital are located outside the new settlement.

Mekhman Guseinov, a blogger, insisted on cancellation of registration of Faradj Guliev, his rival at parliamentary elections, but the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan has only made a warning and decided to wait for the outcome of the investigation initiated by the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO).

Alizamin Salaev, an activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) has told at the trial that he had been tortured by law enforcers, but the court rejected the defence's motion demanding to investigate this statement.

Investigators have charged two other colleagues of the soldier, Vagram Avagyan, who perished in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), with non-statute relations (hazing); therefore, there are now three persons accused in his death base.

An advocate of Amir Oskanov, a participant of a rally in Magas, requested the court to question both law enforces, with the use of force against whom Amir Oskanov was charged.

In the course of the regular military exercises in Northern Caucasus, soldiers and officers are practicing defensive tactics, explain Russian political analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot". Their Georgian counterparts associated the military exercises in Russia with the political crisis in Georgia.

The murder in France of blogger Imran Aliev is an act aimed to intimidate critics of the Chechen government, believes Tumso Abdurakhmanov. The killer was hunting for Minkail Malizaev, whom the French authorities refused to provide police protection, suggested activist Djambulat Suleimanov and human rights defender Daniel Mihailovic.

A new "warning conversation" with people detained for driving cars in a state of alcoholic intoxication, for using of narcotic and psychotropic substances, and "for other illegal actions" was arranged by Rustam Aguev, the chief of the Department for the Kurchaloi District of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Today, Mher Pogosyan, a resident of Stepanakert, has ended his protest rally against the construction of a hydroelectric power plant (HPP). The protestor says that he is satisfied with the creation of a commission to examine environmental harm. Mher Pogosyan called for an anti-corruption inspection.

Ramzan Kadyrov has appointed his cousin Idris Baisultanov the Minister of Education of Chechnya. Earlier, Idris Baisultanov held the post of the deputy head of the Chechen leader's administration. Ramzan Kadyrov continues to build his own "power vertical axis" in Chechnya, local residents suggest.