News

On May 7, Azerbaijani policemen stopped a protest action organized by relatives of those arrested within the "Ganja case" and detained several protesters and journalists.

The State Security Service (SSS) of Georgia has reported that Malkhaz Machalikashvili, the father of Temirlan Machalikashvili, killed during a special operation in Pankisi, had the intention to commit a terror act. Machalikashvili himself has treated the SSS' statement as absurd.

The Azerbaijani part of the "David Garedja" cave complex is connected with the history of Christianity in Azerbaijan and cannot be transferred to Georgia, the Baku experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have stated. There are forces in Georgia seeking to aggravate the border conflict, but the authorities of both countries are not interested in it, they assert.

The employees of the Committee against Torture (CaT) and the cameraman, detained by law enforcers during filming in Nazran, were released after checking documents, Igor Kalyapin, the CaT head, has informed.

Marat Ueldanov has told his relatives that he was beaten up in the Azerbaijani prison, his sister has stated.

Law enforcers have detained Magomed Alamov and Evgeny Chilikov, employees of the "Committee against Torture" (CaT), and a cameraman, Leonid Utkin, who were filming in Nazran, the Human Rights Council under the Russian President has reported today.

Near the village of Novokuli in Dagestan, at a rally, protesters stated that migrants' families cannot receive land plots and demanded from the authorities to take their interests into account when transferring land into ownership.

The case of Robert Kocharyan has been handed over to David Grigoryan, who had claimed self-disqualification, when freedom restriction measure of the second Armenian President was discussed.

Today, employees and visitors of a number of shopping and business centres, as well as the marketplace in Volgograd, were evacuated after receiving false reports that the facilities had been mined. The person who wrote about bombs explained his motives by Russia's participation in the Syrian conflict, the director general of the "Voroshilovsky" Shopping Centre said.

Alizamin Salaev, an activist of the oppositional Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), has been sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest on charges of disobedience to the police. The party treats his arrest as politically motivated.

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" appealed to Russia's Ombudsperson Tatiana Moskalkova with a request to find out why the Russian Ministry of Finance demanded to review the documents submitted by victims of the counterterrorist operation (CTO) in Dagestan.

Over 24 hours, the positions of the Azerbaijani army in the Karabakh conflict zone, including in the border village, were shelled 24 times, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for Azerbaijan reports today.

On the eve of the holy month of Ramadan, prices for certain foodstuffs went up in Grozny, local residents report. The republic's authorities are unable to restrain food price growth, Ruslan Kutaev, the head of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations, believes.

Because of the flooding, some villagers of the Gurdjaani and Lagodekhi Districts of Georgia have lost their crops. Local authorities indicate the need to restore protective facilities on the Alazani and Inaboti Rivers.

Charity events, collective Iftars and Nashid parties were held in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia on the occasion of the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

The investigating authorities of Ingushetia have declared three women-residents of the republic to be accomplices to the militants fighting in Syria. The eldest woman is 27 years old, the youngest one is 19, investigators have reported.

The report of an attack on military servicemen in Chechnya on April 22, widespread by the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court, is aimed at maintaining its image and strengthening its influence on militants, experts assert. At the same time, they noted that Chechen authorities failed to provide any evidence refuting this information.

The court has released Emin Babaev, a member of the "Republican Alternative" (ReAl) Party, from custody, having fined him for disobeying police. Babaev himself denies the charges. Azer Gasymly, the Chairman of the Party's Majlis, asserts that Babaev was detained for political reasons.

In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, a court refused to recognize that placing Aslan Cherkesov, a native of Kabardino-Balkaria, into the dungeon (a punishment cell, also known as ShIZO) for many times in a row was a violation, the inmate's advocate has informed.

Demonstrations on May Day; release of journalist Zhalaudi Geriev; aggravation in the Karabakh conflict zone, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of April 29-May 5, 2019, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".