News

Zeinal Bagirzade, an activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR), behaves passively at his trial; and relatives fear that he is under pressure, said his brother Bagirsoy Bagirzade.

In Sochi, the police search for the organizers of the unsanctioned rally of pensioners. However, according to Igor Vasiliev, the leader of local Communists, the suspicions that the rally was organized by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) are groundless.

Shant Arutyunyan, the leader of the Armenian "Tsegakron" Party, and the retired Lieutenant Colonel Vardan Vardanyan stopped their protest, following the activist Yke Kyuregyan, whose demands were satisfied on January 22.

On January 22, Ingushetia held the action of charity, including the distribution of food to low-income families. In total, volunteers distributed 172 packages of food. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Magomed Tarchiev, a staff member of the "Tesham" Charity Foundation.

In Adygea, the police start checking reports about the damage to the dolmen "Khadjokh-4", whose age, according to researches of Russian archaeologists, is approximately 4000 years.

North Ossetian law enforcers have detained two citizens, who tried to carry in the trunk of their car a Kalashnikov submachine gun, and 88 7.62-mm calibre rounds. Criminal cases have been opened on illegal acquisition and storage, as well as smuggling the firearms.

In the evening of January 22, Armenian activist Yke Kyuregyan, sentenced to nine years of imprisonment for the shooting in front of the court building, has stopped his hunger strike after he was placed to a separate cell.

At the trial, considering the appeals against the sentences in the criminal case on the attack on Nalchik, 14 convicts have delivered their final speeches. All of them have asked the court to commute their sentences or to acquit them. The public prosecutors have opposed the mitigation of the punishment.

In Sochi, two persons have been injured as a result of the explosion of a gas cylinder in a two-storey residential building. The other tenants of the house were evacuated. In total, the house accommodated 129 people.

The police prevented the pro-government action held in Grozny from dispersing, eyewitnesses assert. The head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has denied that the authorities applied coercion to the participants of the rally, which brought together, according to official data, 57% of the republic's population.

Today, the Krasnodar Territorial Court found Pyotr Parpulov, a Sochi pensioner, guilty of high treason. His defence announced its intention to appeal against the verdict.

Vardanyan refused to eat and joined the hunger strike of activist Yke Kyuregyan.

On January 21, Fariz Namazly, an advocate of Khadija Ismayilova, visited his client in the women's colony No. 4 in the territory of Azerbaijan. However, the prison officials did not allow him to carry in the documents related to communication on three Ismayilova's complaints to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Today, Grozny has held the rally "Our Strength is in Unity" in support of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the rally was attended by more than 800,000 people. In total, according to the latest statistics, Chechnya is home for about 1.4 million people.

Today, Armenia has started the next court hearing in the criminal case against Valery Permyakov, accused of killing seven members of the Avetisyan family.

The North-Caucasian Military Court has sentenced Visit Tazbaev, a Russian citizen, detained in Sochi, to two years of imprisonment for his intention to join militants of the "Islamic State" (IS), banned in Russia.

On January 21, the Russia's Supreme Court (SC) continued the appeal consideration of the case on the attack on Nalchik. The next session is scheduled for January 25. The defendant Rasul Kudaev, sentenced to life imprisonment, has an alibi, but his rights were violated by the first-instance court, said the rights defender Oleg Orlov.

The reports prepared by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) concerning two resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh are of pro-Azerbaijani nature and are biased. This opinion has been expressed in the appeal of NGOs of Nagorno-Karabakh to the European MPs.

In Sochi, at the gathering of city residents Mayor of Sochi Anatoly Pakhomov has urged the city residents not to go to a rally organized by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and sanctioned by the authorities. The rally was devoted to the protection of the rights of pensioners.

The Russian federal authorities "must respond to a series of barely veiled threats against several prominent rights defenders, media figures and politicians, pronounced by the political leadership of the Chechen Republic." "Such threats should be taken seriously," says a statement posted on the website of the human rights organization "Amnesty International" (AI).