News

The legal regime of the counterterrorist operation (CTO) in the Khunzakh District was cancelled today at 8:30 p.m. Moscow time.

The two persons, killed in a special operation in the Khunzakh District of Dagestan, had been involved in attacks on law enforcers and in murders in 2014 of civilians and the Imam of the mosque of the village of Gotsatl, said the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC).

Investigators in Ingushetia have added to the case of beating up journalists and rights defenders in the Sunzha District the article about a group armed attack in order to steal property.

The car blown up near the mosque in Nasyr-Kort belonged to a native of Dagestan, but in recent time it was used by proxy by another person, said a law enforcement source from Ingushetia.

Vitaly Zubenko, an advocate of Elizaveta Alieva, has filed a complaint against the investigators' refusal to inform about the progress of the inquiry into the case initiated after the disappearance of her sister Marem in Ingushetia.

Election of the Mufti of North Ossetia is scheduled for March 16. During the 6 years that the republic's Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) is headed Khadjimurat Gatsalov, the Muftiate failed to establish due relationships with power agents, said the Mufti.

Residents of the neighbourhood Maly Akhun have complained to the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) about the construction within specially protected area of recreational purpose.

At the court session on the case of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh in Chechnya, which the journalists attacked in Ingushetia were going to cover, Alexander Cherkasov, the head of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", was questioned.

Prior to attempt on Imam Khamzat Chumakov, some stranger, unknown to his supporters, twice tried to provoke him. On the day of the attempt, he called Chumakov and mosque-goers to go to the place where later a car was exploded.

An attack on journalists and human rights defenders on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya has hurt the reputations of the leaders of both republics and the Russian special services, involved in the region. This opinion was expressed by political analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".

Two members of the armed underground have been killed during the special operation carried out in the Khunzakh District, and law enforcers are searching for their accomplices. This was reported by the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC).

According to human rights defenders and public figures, an attempt on Khamzat Chumakov has been committed amid the statements of criticism voiced against him by Ramzan Kadyrov; the attempt was prepared in advance and was not connected with his condemnation of attacks on journalists in Ingushetia.

Today, journalists from Sweden and Norway, hospitalized after the attack in Ingushetia, have been discharged from the hospital for outpatient treatment.

The whereabouts of seven Russian soldiers, involved as witnesses in the case of the murder of the Avetisyan family members in Gyumri are unknown. This was reported to the court in Armenia by officers of the Russian military base.

In the Khunzakh District of Dagestan, within the CTO regime, power agents are carrying out house-by-house checks in the village of Orota, local residents report. The village is full of military equipment; the kindergarten and the school are closed.

According to the Kremlin press service, Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his subordinates to find out all the circumstances of the incident on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, as a result of which human rights defenders and journalists had been injured.

The special operation, begun today, by power agents in two mountain districts of Dagestan, was the second one this year in the Botlikh District, and the first in almost 1.5 years in the Khunzakh District.

In the course of the inquiry into the criminal case against the former Mayor of Makhachkala Said Amirov, the defendants' rights had been violated; and advocates' arguments were ignored – this was declared at the yesterday's court session. Amirov himself said about facts of applying torture to figurants of the case.

In Armenia, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has upheld the decision to arrest the activist Gevorg Safaryan, who is accused of using violence against an authority.

The Caucasian Geopolitical Club (CGC) has presented a collection of analytical articles and interviews of Khadjimurat Gatsalov, the Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) of North Ossetia. In the opinion of Yana Amelina, the editor, the book pictures the Mufti as one of the leading Russian statesmen.