News

Criminal case against the third president of Armenia; scheduling of early parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan; actions in support of political prisoners in Southern Russia; tension in relations between Russia and Germany in connection with the killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili; resignation of the Abkhazian Minister of Internal Affairs amid a protest rally; new detentions in the case on the assassination of the chief of the Ingush Centre "E", – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of December 2-8, 2019, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

By his PR actions, Ramzan Kadyrov emphasizes the image of an authoritarian leader, by borrowing features from the image of President Vladimir Putin, PR experts believe. Kadyrov's jokes and extravagant antics are caused by his desire to stand out, researchers of the Caucasus assert.

Frequent skirmishes of "Georgian Dream" activists from among civil servants with oppositionists are giving rise to extreme political escalation, analysts of the NGO "International Transparency Georgia" have stated.

Law enforcers have searched the house of Saadu Akhmednabiev, the brother of the Muslim preacher Abu Umar of Sasitli; and then, took Saadu away in a helicopter, his father Saigidakhmed Akhmednabiev has informed.

The General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has complained to the Azerbaijani Bar Association about the advocate Nemat Kerimli. The reason for the complaint was his public allegations about torture of his client Tofig Yagublu, an opposition activist.

At a flash mob rally in Rostov-on-Don, activists spoke out in support of prisoners of conscience and against repressions.

Since December 1, Azerbaijani soldiers fired more than a thousand shots at positions of the Defence Army, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) informed on December 7.

Three minors evacuated from Syria have returned to their mother in Dagestan; one girl was met by her grandmother from Volgograd.

Azerbaijani authorities should restore the powers of the lawyer Shakhla Gumbatova and her colleagues, also deprived of their powers for their defence of human rights, four international human rights organizations have stated.

Ingush authorities are now solving the issue of providing housing to the needy family, in which, after discharging from hospital, the girl, who had her arm amputated as a result of domestic violence, will live. In the upcoming year, they will live in a rented apartment in Magas.

The positions of Azerbaijani troops stationed on the border with Armenia and in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area were shelled for 24 times over the past 24 hours, the country's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated today.

A court has found the rite of "hardening" a three-month-old child, whom his grandmother rubbed with snow, to be an offense. The mother of the baby was fined, although, according to Chechen customs, parents have no right to object to their own parents, local residents have noted.

As stated by the authors of an international journalistic investigation, the alleged killer of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, shot dead in Berlin, had served in the "Vympel" (Pennant) FSB Special Forces unit and was involved in at least two murders in Russia.

The Georgian Govt's plans to build the "Khadori-3" hydroelectric power plant (HPP) have split residents of the Pankisi Gorge into two camps; the conflict was exacerbated by the political confrontation.

Chechen authorities are making use of public humiliations by relying both on the Soviet experience and on the long-standing traditions of the nation. However, over time, people's systematic demonstrative humiliations start generating the opposite effect, the experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

A Russian suspected of assassinating Zelimkhan Khangoshvili has been transferred from the Moabit Prison into the high security prison in Tegel. The decision was made by employees of the State Criminal Investigation Department: they received information that the killer is in danger of liquidation, the "Berliner Morgenpost" newspaper has written.

On December 6, a Volgograd court extended by two months the detention of five Jehovah Witnesses*. Their relatives complain that investigators ban to visit the detainees.

A bill adopted by the Armenian parliament and restricting water withdrawal from Lake Sevan is inefficient, since it does not prohibit the use of large volumes of water from the lake, say ecologists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".

In addition to 20 administrative protocols on the absence of a "foreign agent" mark drawn up against the "International Memorial" and Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" after the inspection conducted by the Ingush FSB, the "Roskomnadzor" (Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) drew up eight more protocols on a complaint filed by an individual.

In Moscow and Ingushetia, six persons have been detained in a case on the murder of Ibragim Eldjarkiev, the chief of the Ingush Centre for Combating Extremism (CCE, also known as Centre "E"). Entrepreneur Khasan Polonkoev, one of the detainees, led the grouping involved in the murder, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) suggests.