News

The law enforcers, who were shelled today in the Derbent District of Dagestan, tried to stop a car for inspection. Two men in the car were killed by return fire, the Chief Department for the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has confirmed.

In the Derbent District of Dagestan, two armed men opened fire at power agents and were killed by return fire, said a law enforcement source.

A march against the ongoing Georgia's ecological policy was held in Tbilisi. According to organizers, the action was attended by over 100 people.

The case of five employees of the Kizilyurt ROVD (District Interior Division) of Dagestan, which was earlier returned by the court to the prosecutor's office, is ready for sending to the North-Caucasian District Military Court for consideration on the merits.

Ayuf Borchashvili, the Imam of the village of Djokolo, detained at the Tbilisi Airport, had been actively involved in recruiting young Muslims and sending them to Syria to take part in the warfare for the "Islamic State" (IS), which was recognized to be a terrorist organization. This was stated by Giorgi Borchashvili, a relative of the Imam.

Russian investigators must do everything possible to solve Natalia Estemirova's murder, committed six years ago, said activists of the "Amnesty International" (AI) in the course of the actions held in a number of European cities.

Until now, Chechnya and Dagestan have no clear mechanisms to counteract human rights violations by law enforcers, said the participants of the roundtable held at the opening of the exhibition dedicated to violence in the Northern Caucasus and dated to the sixth anniversary of the murder of Natalia Estemirova.

The decision to put the letter by Polina Zherebtsova to Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the list of extremist materials is illegal, said the experts of the "Sova" Information-Analytical Centre.

After the promises of the Minister of Energy of Armenia to repay all the wage debts before the end of July, ex-workers of the "Nairit" Factory decided to postpone the start of their sit-in strike, while continuing a series of pickets.

Gennady Vorabyev, who went on hunger strike demanding to provide housing to his family, continues his protest for the third day. According to the protester, he is day-and-night in his car in the centre of the city and drinks only water.

Five regions out of seven in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and Adygea have announced the first days of Eid ul-Fitr (Uraza-Bayram) as holidays. At the same time, Muslims of Dagestan and Chechnya will complete their fasting on July 18 – a day later than in other regions.

The protest movement in Armenia has become a transition to a new stage of the country's political life, said the Armenian political expert interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot". According to their forecasts, demands to change the power, or a decline of opposition's activeness should follow. However, the experts are sure that they see the interest of the authorities in all that.

According to the court judgement, deductions are made from the pension of Mirzamagomed Lukmanov, a resident of Izberbash and a category II invalid, to repay a large debt to gas-supplying companies. The pensioner himself states that he had regularly paid the bills; and his advocate is preparing an application for a retrial of the case.

The convicts serving their terms in Colony No. 9 in Volgograd have posted video clips on the Internet showing the poor custody conditions in their colony. The colony bosses have launched a check; but already before its end, they have partially refuted the convicts' information.

None of the three persons killed in Baksan on July 14 was on the federal wanted list, said a law enforcement source from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR).

Collective breaking of the fasting for believers in connection with the forthcoming end of the Ramadan was held in the mosques of Chechnya. Civil servants said that their participation in the event was not voluntary.

The Committee against Torture (CaT) disagrees with the answer received from Alexander Savenkov, a deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Russia, who saw no inaction of the police during the attack on the office of rights defenders.

Today, the exhibition "The Never-Ending Story: Violence and Impunity in Northern Caucasus" was opened in Moscow today on the sixth anniversary of the murder of Natalia Estemirova.

The main environmental problem in Adygea is contamination of soil and rivers by agricultural producers, said members of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) in the city Maikop. Local ecologists and journalists told them about the pressure exerted on them by local authorities.

Magazali Endreev, the head of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) has visited in the SIZO (pre-trial prison) of Nalchik a convict Sergey Kaziev, who is holding his hunger strike for more than a month.