News

So far, the growth in the number of armed incidents in Kabardino-Balkaria does not mean a real militants' activation, but the conditions for the operation of the armed underground have not disappeared, but the work on militants' adaptation has been curtailed, analysts assert.

The Syrian President, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, has announced a general amnesty, but a Perm court refused to change the verdict and release a native of Chechnya, convicted for participating in the Syrian conflict on the side of militants, from his colony.

The erection of fortifications on the demarcation lines with South Ossetia and Abkhazia is painfully perceived by the Georgian society and supports anti-Russian sentiments in it, as can be seen from the recent protests in Tbilisi, the Amnesty International (AI) has stated.

The practice of mass detentions of acquaintances of a suspected militant is not unique for Chechnya and Northern Caucasus; this is a common method of Russian law enforcers, said Ruslan Kutaev, the head of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations.

The Supreme Court (SC) of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) has reduced the arrest of the Ingush elder, Ahmed Barakhoev, from three to two months.

The Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya has sent the case of eight residents of Dagestan, who, according to law enforcers, had prepared a terror act and were killed in a shootout, to the Supreme Court of Chechnya. The casualties' relatives insist on the trial to be held Dagestan, Andrei Sabinin, a lawyer of the "Agora" International Human Rights Group, has stated.

The Supreme Court (SC) of Dagestan refused to transfer Abdulmumin Gadjiev, a journalist of the newspaper "Chernovik" (Draft), to house arrest. The defence believes that the detention of Abdulmumin Gadjiev is not justified.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claims that the police checkpoint, where policemen were attacked, is of "no strategic" significance. The police checkpoint is located in the forest at a great distance from villages and towns, local residents report.

Zelimkhan Musaev, who was killed while attacking a police checkpoint in Chechnya, was a drug addict, married to a woman whose relatives were militants who had left for Syria, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) reported.

Today, activist Sakhib Rustamli has been taken to a police station and warned for criticizing the authorities on social networks and issues of the online opposition TV channel. This has been reported by the activist himself. Members of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) treat the detention of Sakhib Rustamli as a part of the campaign to persecute oppositionists.

Azerbaijani journalist Fuad Abbasov does not intend to return to Russia, even if the 50-year ban on entry into the country is lifted. He promised to protect the rights of Azerbaijanis in Russia through his online "Misra-TV" channel.

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" continues to examine cases of the activists arrested after the March rallies in Magas. The list of Ingush political prisoners will include the names of other oppositionists, if prosecutors do not have convincing evidence against them.

Restrictions on the crossing of the borders of Georgia with Abkhazia and South Ossetia violate the rights of residents of border villages who cannot run their farms and risk being detained for crossing the border, declares the human rights organization "Amnesty International" (AI).

The Imams of Ingushetia have asked the Russia's Public Prosecutor General, Yuri Chaika, to check the lawfulness of the searches conducted at the republic's Muftiate and in the house of Mufti Isa Khamkhoev, and of many-hour-long interrogations of religious figures.

Outside the parliament building in Tbilisi, three persons continue their protest hunger strike demanding resignation of the head of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), but no one cares about them, protesters have stated. Meanwhile, the spokeswoman of the "Georgian Dream" Party said that there are no complaints about Minister Giorgi Gakhariya's actions during the dispersal of protesters' rally.

The political importance of Azerbaijan for Europe after the commissioning of the TANAP pipeline will grow, Azerbaijani economists believe, whose opinions regarding the profitability of gas transmission projects have divided. The West, because of its energy interests, sacrifices human rights in Azerbaijan, right defenders believe.

The "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation by the court, has claimed responsibility for the attack on the police post in the Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya for the sake of self-promotion; and the incident itself was hardly a terror act, retired law enforcers believe.

The elimination of the electoral barrier, proposed by the "Georgian Dream" Party, will allow parties with dubious funding sources and created by ethnic minorities to enter the parliament, activists of Georgian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have stated.

The video shows the detained employees of the "Directorate of the Unified State Customer-Developer" convoyed with bags over their heads. The demonstratively tough detention of suspects of committing economic crimes is a method for intimidating their potential accomplices, journalists and a political analyst believe.

The "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court, has posted a video of the oath taken by Azerbaijani militants to the leader of the IS. This is the first IS' video from Azerbaijan.