News

The detention of a witch in Chechnya and the report shown by the "Grozny" ChGTRK (Chechen State TV and Radio Company), where she was criticized by a doctor from the Centre for Islamic Medicine, was treated by some social networks commentators as a return to Middle Ages. Their opponents have supported the persecution of sorcerers in the republic.

After her two-day visit to Baku, Liliane Maury Pasquier, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called for an open dialogue and enhanced cooperation of the Council of Europe with Azerbaijan. The PACE's position can seriously affect the solution of the problem of political prisoners, human rights defenders believe.

Schoolchildren and employees of budget-funded organizations were enlisted in large numbers to take part in the environmental subbotnik (community works), held yesterday in the Shali and Gudermes Districts of Chechnya.

During searches in Krasnodar, law enforcers seized computers and telephones local activists have stated, adding that by a Moscow court judgement their bank accounts were blocked. Political analysts treat this law enforcers' reaction as a response to the "Smart Voting" system.

The adaptation to peaceful life of the children returned to Dagestan is undertaken not only by state bodies, but also by volunteers, who help to bring the returnees' knowledge up to the level of their peers.

Georgia has refused to remove the block-post erected near the village of Tsnelis, but demanded from South Ossetia to open the border for the passage of residents of the pre-border regions, Irakli Antadze, the spokesman of the Georgian State Security Service (SSS), has stated. The South-Ossetian party will take steps to relieve tensions, if Georgia makes concessions, said Yegor Kochiev, the head of the South-Ossetian delegation.

Nika Meliya, an MP from the oppositional "United National Movement" Party, has violated the terms of his appointed freedom deprivation measure, when he took part, without a due permit, in a political talk show on a local TV channel, the Georgian General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has stated. In case of a repeated violation, the GPO threatens to arrest him.

On September 13, several dozens of law enforcers were checking documents of the drivers who drove their cars in the vicinity of the "Tangim" mosque in Makhachkala, the journalist, Idris Yusupov, stated. Nobody was detained during the raid, the Dagestani Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has reported in its turn.

Within a week, Malsag Uzhakhov, the head of the Ingush Council of Teips (family clans) has suffered two heart attacks, and needs treatment at the SIZO (pre-trial prison) medical unit, his advocate has stated.

Magomedamin Vagabov, a resident of the Dagestani village of Gubden, accused of rendering assistance to militants, refused to plead guilty at trial on September 12. He explained that he had incriminated himself after torture with electric current.

On September 12, Ayup Gagiev, the chair of the Constitutional Court of Ingushetia, declared that the agreements with the authorities of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which served as the basis for the agreement on the changed administrative border signed by Ramzan Kadyrov and Yunus-Bek Evkurov, had no legal force.

Today, after leaving a penal colony in Astrakhan, Makhmud Velitov, the imam of a Moscow mosque, who had served his sentence on the charge of justifying terrorism, has said that he had gained "useful experience."

In Germany, a court unreasonably decided that relatives of Tumso Abdurakhmanov would be safe when they returned to Russia, since the Chechen authorities would be able to use them to put pressure on their political opponent, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" declared on September 12.

The positions of the Azerbaijani troops were shelled in the Karabakh conflict zone, including in a village located in the border area, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for Azerbaijan reports today.

On September 12, after a search at the apartment of Semyon Simonov, a human rights defender and an expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the police seized laptops and documents. This was reported by Semyon Simonov himself.

The Chechen police have detained Sekinat Ibragimova, a local resident, accusing her of rendering magical services.

The picketers have demanded to stop the wave of searches in homes of supporters of Alexei Navalny in Volgograd.

Russian President, who visited the Dagestani village of Botlikh, has promised to develop the infrastructure of mountain villages and to discuss with the Ministry of Finance a contractor for the upgrade of Makhachkala purification facilities.

Three participants in the clash of supporters and opponents of Robert Kocharyan, a former Armenian President, who is accused of a putsch attempts, were taken to the police, another one was hospitalized, the police have informed.

A hospital in China would not give out the body of Anisat Ervasova, a deceased resident of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), demanding from her husband to pay more than 1.5 million roubles for her resuscitation; 800,000 roubles are needed for embalming and transporting the body.