News

Today, the Baku Economic and Administrative Court has partially granted the claim filed by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Taxes against journalist Khadija Ismayilova. The defendant treated the claim against her as an attempt to limit her cooperation with the Western media.

The Gurdjaani District Court has refused to release Gocha Maisuradze and Mamuka Usinashvili, suspected of attacking an oppositionist near the village of Velistsikhe, on bail.

On December 18, the Ingush businessman, Mikhail Gutseriev, announced his intention to file a lawsuit for protection of his business reputation after being accused by Moscow Circus director Edgard Zapashny of constructing an arena for the Canadian "Cirque du Soleil".

The decision to liquidate the Armenian Ministry of the Diaspora and reorganize the Ministry of Culture is erroneous and will result in staff reductions and move the problems of culture and interaction with the Diaspora to the background, employees of the Ministries have stated today at the protest action.

Positions of the Azerbaijani Army were shelled at in the Karabakh conflict zone, including in the border village of Geyali, the country's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported today.

On December 19, dozens North-Caucasian natives were detained by law enforcers forces in a Moscow hostel; they were all released after photographing and fingerprinting, the hostel tenants told the "Caucasian Knot". According to their story, law enforcers behaved rudely and applied physical force against some tenants.

The information about violent disappearances, torture, extrajudicial executions, pressure on human rights defenders and persecutions of gays in Chechnya has been treated as indisputable facts in the report. The publication thereof will not affect the situation in the republic, but it will make it easier for refugees from Chechnya to get protection abroad, activists of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" told the "Caucasian Knot".

A court in Baku has sentenced Telman Shiraliev, a religious activist, to five months and 18 days in prison. Rights defenders view the new case against Shiraliev as politically motivated, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

After Vladimir Putin's statement that the murder case of Gasanguseinov brothers will be under special control, their father decided to suspend his protest actions.

Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", who has been under arrest in Chechnya since this January, has been included into the annual rating of "100 outstanding people" compiled by the "Russian Reporter".

During the today's press conference in Moscow, while answering a question from a Dagestani journalist, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to "give necessary attention" to the case on the killing of the Gasanguseinov brothers in Dagestan.

Members of the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court, who were killed in Stavropol, were plotting terror acts, and one of them fought in Syria during three years, the law enforcement bodies reported.

During searches conducted at a dormitory of a Moscow university, law enforcers beat Ingush students with their feet and with rubber hammers, victims reported. 13 complaints about actions of the law enforcers were written, reported on December 19 an advocate of victims.

Today, in Makhachkala, Murtazali Gasanguseinov, a father of the killed shepherds, has started a protest action with the demand to investigate the killing of his sons and to sanction a rally, report users of social networks.

The trial of David Kirkitadze, an activist of the oppositional "United National Movement" (UNM) Party, has started today against the background of the opposition's protest.

The appeals instance (the Supreme Court of Ingushetia) has satisfied the complaint against the fine imposed on Magomed Mutsolgov, a human rights defender, for his participation in the October rally against changing the Chechen-Ingush border. The court judgement became known on December 19.

The European Union (EU) has expressed concern over the growth of unjustified applications for asylum submitted by Georgian citizens. This is stated in the 2nd Report of the European Commission on the visa-free regime for the countries of Eastern Europe.

The Constitutional Court of Russia has put a full stop in the dispute over the Chechen-Ingush border. An attempt to solve this conflict under the Islamic law is unpromising, given the lack of mechanisms for enforcing the decisions of the Sharia Court in the Russian legal environment, the historians interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

Former workers of the "Nairit" plant, who held a protest action demanding to meet Nikol Pashinyan, the Acting Prime Minister of Armenia, failed to do it. They complained about their difficult financial situation after the closure of the plant and announced their intention to continue protest actions.

Residents of the dwelling settlement of Vremenny in Dagestan are unable, for four years, to receive the due compensation for their houses destroyed during a special operation, since the bureaucrats from the Untsukul District Administration fail to compile the primary documentation for compensational payments. In the lawsuit, lodged on behalf of five local residents, a lawyer of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" demands to oblige local officials to draw up the required documents.