News

The truce in the Karabakh conflict zone was broken, and fire came from the side of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for Azerbaijan has reported today.

Foreign TV channels should be removed from the package of state TV channels and transferred to private digital TV channels, said Tigran Akopyan, the head of the Armenia's National Commission on TV and Radio.

At a rally in the city of Ganja, family members of those arrested in connection with the July 2018 events have demanded to release them.

Three solidarity actions with the residents of the Pankisi Gorge, who are protesting against the construction of a chain of hydropower plants (HPPs), have been held in Tbilisi and Batumi. Activists called on the authorities to abandon the construction and punish the policemen for an excessive use of force.

Gocha Fidiuri, a resident of the village of Medjvriskhevi, located on the border with South Ossetia, was released after paying a fine for violating the border and handed over to Georgian law enforcers.

Aslanbek Tumgoev, the head of the city administration (Mayor) of the city of Nazran, has decided to forgive Isropil Barkinkhoev, a resident of Ingushetia, who had wounded his son during an armed conflict. The reconciliation ceremony took place in the central mosque in the presence of about 200 people.

Shamil Kazbulatov, a resident of the Stavropol Territory, was found guilty of encroaching on the life of servicemen as a member of the gang of Basaev and Khattab in Chechnya, and sentenced to 16 years in a high security colony, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) reported on April 22.

The protest against the construction of hydropower plants (HPPs) in the Pankisi Gorge has demonstrated the authorities' inability to conduct dialogue with the population, activists of oppositional parties have stated. Georgian human rights organizations demanded the resignation of the newly appointed head of the Ministry of Economy.

The bill put forward today for consideration by Armenian MPs envisages to render help to the victims and successors of those ten persons who perished during clashes on March 1-2, 2008, Lena Nazaryan, the Vice-Speaker has informed.

33 policemen and three residents of the Pankisi Gorge, who received traumas during the protest action against the construction of hydropower plants (HPPs) in the gorge, have been discharged from the clinic in Telavi. The participants of the rally in the village of Birkiani have warned the authorities that an attempt to arrest activists will result in intensified protests.

Opposition journalist Afghan Mukhtarly, who was sentenced to six years of imprisonment, complained of severe pains, reported his wife Leyla Mustafaeva. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for Azerbaijan claims that Afghan Mukhtarly has the opportunity to undergo all necessary medical examinations.

Today, advocate Mikhail Benyash has succeeded in seeking a penalty of 100,000 roubles to be imposed on the federal treasury for his two-week administrative arrest after a rally in Krasnodar.

During the week of April 15-21, 2019, no victims to the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus were reported. These are the results of the calculations run by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

Ingushetia, Chechnya, the Krasnodar Territory, and Dagestan are included in the top twenty in terms of population in the list of regions of Russia compiled by the RIA "Rating". Meanwhile, Ingushetia and Chechnya are ranked the second and third in the rating, respectively.

There are no threats to the lives of the policemen hospitalized after clashes with opponents of the construction of a hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in the Pankisi Gorge, reported the spokesperson of the Telavi Hospital.

In Grozny, employees of public sector institutions reported about being forced to attend a boxing tournament. In Chechnya, the power penetrates deeply into a personal space of people, their families, and personal leisure time, human rights defenders note.

Events to mark 10th anniversary of CTO cancellation in Chechnya; suspending of Chechen-Dagestani border demarcation, – read about these and other events that happened during the week from April 15 to April 21, 2019, in the Caucasus in the review, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

On April 20, the "Chechnya Today" News Agency posted a video entitled "Chechen youth addresses pseudo-patriotic bloggers". In the video, four young people express their negative attitude to an indefinite number of bloggers who criticize the authorities of Chechnya, and, in particular, to Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Social network users have found the clip to be a staged one.

Fifteen protesters against the construction of a chain of hydraulic power plants (HPPs) in the Pankisi Gorge were detained. After the intervention of the head of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), they were all released, said Ramazan Bakagashvili, a deputy from the community of Duisi at the sacrebulo (municipal council) of the Akhmeta District.

Samir Kyazymly, an Azerbaijani human rights defender and the coordinator of the Alliance for the Protection of Political Freedoms, has complained to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that he is constantly unreasonably checked at customs when leaving Azerbaijan and coming back home. On April 19, the ECtHR notified him that his complaint had been registered.