News

From August 5 to 11, Azerbaijani soldiers made more than 1800 shots on the positions of the Defence Army, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Nagorno-Karabakh has stated.

Rescuers have handed the body of a man, whose heart stopped on Saturday while he was climbing Mount Elbrus, over to law enforcers.

Within the past 24 hours, Armenian militaries violated the ceasefire in the Karabakh conflict zone for 82 times by using heavy machine guns, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated.

Harlem Désir, the OSCE Official on Media Freedom, has called on Azerbaijani authorities to urgently reform the country's mass media legislation. Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has cancelled the blocking of one of the news websites – the "arqument.az".

Law enforcers have detained Ruslan Shavadze, who had been sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison for complicity to the terrorist grouping headed by Akhmed Chataev.

The UN reports are important, but authorities do not always consider them, said Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Civil Assistance Committee, and Sergey Davidis, a board member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

Karim Kasumov, a resident of Dagestan, accused of attacking a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent during a rally in Makhachkala, knew that he was interfering with making a video by a media professional, one of the witnesses told the court, refuting the version of his defence.

The Court of Appeal has considered the complaint of the defence of Robert Kocharyan, the second Armenian President, about his arrest, and has postponed the decision on it until August 13. The members of the Council of Elders of Yerevan from the "Apricot Country" Party have stopped their action against Kocharyan, saying that they will wait for the court's decision.

Ruslan Nasirli, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), kept at the SIZO (pre-trial prison), has demanded from the court to restore his right to be visited by family members and have telephone talks with them.

The state of health of Manvel Grigoryan, a former MP and the head of the Armenian "Erkrapa" Union of Volunteers, is worsening day by day; and his life is under threat, the defence explained its petition to change the measure of the defendant's freedom restraint.

A ritual of shooting at a Caucasian wedding party was considered to be "a kind of a symbol for protection against the evil eye," but the ancient tradition had long turned into an element of fun and courage, noted experts on the Caucasus. The tradition of saluting takes part not only at wedding parties.

The authorities of Chechnya have reported on the issuance of genetic passports for next 86 relatives of the people disappeared during military campaigns. Local residents complain that it takes a lot of time to get those documents.

A man who stayed in Poti as a tourist was carried away to the sea during a storm, while a woman who accompanied him was rescued, reported rescuers.

The ceasefire regime in the Karabakh conflict zone was violated 94 times during a day, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported.

Three years after the death of journalist Rasim Aliev, Azerbaijan still faces persecutions of the freedom of speech, the activists, who gathered to pay tribute to Aliev's memory, have stated.

Giorgi Mamaladze, sentenced to nine years in prison for an attempt to poison the Patriarch's Secretary, has asked the Georgian President to pardon him; however, he refuses to plead guilty.

The withdrawal of Russian troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia may signal the normalization of relations with Russia, Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Prime Minister of Georgia, has stated. The Russia's presence in these territories affects "extremely negatively" on people's lives after the "Five-Day War", the UK representative to the United Nations has stated.

A resident of the Nozhai-Yurt District of Chechnya killed a child and wounded two men by attacking them with a knife.

The Shali City Court has dismissed the defence's petition asking for the time of the session to release Oyub Titiev from the metal cage.

The Azerbaijani Centre for Electronic Security (CES) has found violations of the law in the activities of four oppositional websites, in particular, libel and insults. Media experts treat these actions as illegitimate.