News

The 12th art-house film festival gathered cinematographers from Georgia, Russia, the USA, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Iran, Hungary, Germany, and Turkey.

In the course of the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus, during the week from September 11 to September 17, 2017, no information was available about any casualties or victims. These are the results of the calculations run by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

The today’s protest march of the "Patriots’ Alliance" Party in Tbilisi was not attended by activists of other oppositional forces; however, the party intends holding similar actions in different cities of the country on the weekly basis.

On September 16-17, the Kumyk Theatre hosted a charity event in honour of the Kurban-Bayram holiday. The Dagestani "Nadezhda" (Hope) Foundation brought children from orphanages and low-income families to the performance.

The Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has welcomed the liberation of Mekhman Aliev, Director of the “Turan” News Agency, and Faig Amirov, Financial Director of the “Azadlyg” newspaper; however, it has called on the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release all the remaining journalists and bloggers imprisoned for criticizing them.

On September 16, 12 companies from Armenia, 11 companies from Nagorno-Karabakh and 10 private winemakers, as well as agricultural producers, took part in the Fourth Wine Festival held in the village of Tog, Gadrut District. The organizers hoped for 2500 visitors, but they had much more of them.

This morning, Volgograd housed a rally of defrauded housing shareholders of the cooperative named “Park Evropeisky”. The rally participants called for boycotting the presidential election and demanding the cancellation of the 2018 World Cup in Volgograd.

Mikhail Saakashvili will not be arrested for breaking through the border cordon, Yuri Lutsenko, the Public Prosecutor General of Ukraine has stated today.

In the evening on September 15, Luiza Dudurkaeva, a native of the Argun city, detained at the Minsk airport before her flight to Norway, together with her parents was taken to the police station in Chechnya. Law enforcers questioned Luiza Dudurkaeva if she was planning to leave for Syria. Luiza Dudurkaeva and her parents spent the whole night at the police station and only later they were released.

Blogger Alexander Lapshin has called an attempt of a murder an incident in the Baku prison, which the Azerbaijani authorities presented as a suicide attempt.

Since September 13, Hayk Kuregyan, a sentenced activist, is on hunger strike. This has been reported today by the Armenian Ministry of Justice (MoJ). According to the activist's father, the protest action of his son is of political nature.

Chechen children brought to Russia from Iraq on September 14 stay in Grozny in families of their fathers. Since the girl got a gunshot wound, it was decided to send her for medical treatment to the Grozny hospital. The boy's health state does not cause fear, and he is being prepared for school.

On September 15, in Azerbaijan, at the trial in the Elchin Ismayilly's case, the defendant and his advocates delivered their final speeches. They have asked the court to pronounce the verdict of acquittal.

In Moscow, the court has extended the term of detention for Igor Nagavkin until September 28. This has been reported today by advocates of the rights defender who is on hunger strike at the SIZO (pre-trial prison). According to them, the court pronounced the decision in their absence.

Valery Dyakonov, a coordinator of the protest actions held by Rostov miners, has informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he was detained by policemen and is being taken to Gukovo.

The Azerbaijani Tax Ministry has cancelled its decision to collect additional 37,000 manats from the “Turan” News Agency. Earlier, this decision triggered a criminal case against the news agency.

On September 15, about 50 people came to a picket in Krasnodar demanding a prompt adoption of the law on responsible attitude to animals. The campaign in Krasnodar was the first in the all-Russian campaign, the activists said.

The release on the Internet of a video with shelling of a FSB building in Ingushetia six months after it took place can be explained by the militants' failures in Iraq and Syria, believes Joanna Paraszczuk. The intensification of propaganda activity is taking place on the eve of the presidential election in Russia, noted Orkhan Djemal.

The Armenian Women's Front has held a protest action in front of the courthouse, where Zhirair Sefilyan, the leader of the movement "100 Years without Regime", is tried.

The court has fined Tatiana Avachova, the coordinator of miners’ protests in the Rostov Region, by 10,000 roubles, and both today's solo picketers – by 20,000 roubles each.