News

Yulia Orlova and Natalia Nesterenko, staff members of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", have launched an independent project "Let's help the Russian-speaking elders in the Caucasus". The project is aimed at providing help to elderly people living alone in Chechnya, most of whom are representatives of minor ethnic group of the republic. The donations collected online will be spent for food, medicines, tickets to visit family members, improvement of welfare, and assistance of psychologists and lawyers.

In the evening of September 29, Alexei Mandrigelya, a public activist, a member of the Public Council for the urban improvement of Krasnodar, was attacked by unidentified persons. Doctors diagnosed a fracture in an activist's rib and bruises on his body. Alexei Mandrigelya told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he got no serious injuries.

Ecologist Evgeny Vitishko, sentenced in the case of damage to the fence around the "Governor Tkachov's summer cottage", has ensured that in the penal settlement-colony No. 2 of the Tambov Region, prisoners are provided with gloves for agricultural works and telephones in buildings of the penitentiary institution. This was reported by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" with reference to Valentina Shaisipova, an advocate of ecologist Evgeny Vitishko.

Refugees living in Poti have announced their intention to start a pedestrian march to Tbilisi to protest against the authorities' refusal to provide them with apartments in new buildings.

In Azerbaijan, Nuriya Guseinova, a cellmate of rights defender Leyla Yunus, which is kept at the Baku SIZO No. 1 (pre-trial prison), has filed a claim of a private criminal charge against advocate Alaif Gasanov. The advocate himself believes the claim is unfounded.

On September 29, in Astrakhan, 15 families of a multi-apartment building No. 78 in Menzhinsky Street, which was destroyed by fire, demanded from the municipal authorities to resolve the problem of compensation payments before the winter. Officials from the city administration have promised to conclude in the near future the agreements on redemption prices with the people affected by fire and pay monetary compensations. However, the officials refuse to indicate the exact date when the problem is solved.

At night on September 27, Sakhratula Magomedov, a resident of Kizilyurt, who was reported missing since September 25, was found, a city source told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. However, this information has not yet been officially confirmed.

The decision to suspend the investigation into the murder of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev was cancelled by the Kirov District Prosecutor's Office of Makhachkala. As suggested by the lawyer Abdurashid Sheikhov, the cancellation was made retroactively.

Anar Mamedli, an Azerbaijani rights defender and the head of the Centre for Monitoring Elections and Democracy Training (CMEDT) was awarded the Human Rights Award named after Vaclav Havel for 2014. This was announced today during the opening ceremony of the autumn session of the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). The Award was given to Anar's father, since the laureate himself is in prison, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

A local woman told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today that law enforcers offered the residents of the settlement of Vremenny, Untsukul District of Dagestan, to leave their settlement. According to her story, residents refused to do it, fearing for their property.

On September 26, representatives of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and Human Rights Watch (HRW) tried to visit the settlement of Vremenny to see what was happening there in terms of human rights, but the power agents at the checkpoint at the crossroads leading to Vremenny and the village of Gimry village refused to let rights defenders to move farther, says the HRC's release received today by the "Caucasian Knot".

The PACE fall session opened on September 29 in Strasbourg is to hold so-called "side-event" titled "Unprecedented Repressions in Azerbaijan". This has been told today to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Khadidja Ismailova, an Azerbaijani investigative journalist, who is to take part in the forthcoming discussions.

During the week of September 22-28, 2014, at least two persons were killed in the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus. One person was wounded. These are the results of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources. The death toll includes one suspected member of the armed underground and one civilian, both of them in Dagestan.

On September 28, the city of Mineralnye Vody (Minvody) hosted a protest action, during which the protestors demanded to conduct a fair investigation into the fact of beating of a man at the Central District Hospital of the city. The protestors were informed by the local deputy police chief that two-thirds of the total number of the fighters had been detained.

Hurricane in Southern Russia, flooding hundreds of houses of local residents and killing several people; inauguration of new President of Abkhazia; conviction of key witness in one of cases against dismissed Mayor of Makhachkala Said Amirov, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of September 22-28, 2014, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Today, the cities of the South Federal District (SFD) and the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) of the Russian Federation have held actions of nationwide solidarity for the preservation of the Central Black Earth Economic Region and against the decision on mining of nickel in the Khopyor River area.

On September 26, in the Volgograd Region, policemen removed a 43-year-old man without any ID from the bus route "Makhachkala-Moscow". The detainee claims that he spent the past 18 years in slavery in Dagestan, where his passport was taken away from him. After the man gave his explanations to law enforcers, they released him, and he went to Moscow by hitchhiking. This was reported by the volunteer organization "Alternative".

The "Rosfinmonitoring" (the Russian Federal Service for Financial Monitoring) has included Krasnodar oppositionists Darya Polyudova, Vyacheslav Martynov and Pyotr Lyubchenkov, who intended to hold a protest action against the Russia's policy towards Ukraine, in the official list of terrorists and extremists.

On September 27, about 50 residents of buildings located in Park and Constitution Streets in Sochi held one more gathering with the demand to stop the construction of high-rise buildings in their residential area.

On September 27, in Volgograd, a mourning action in memory of the dead residents of Donbas was held in front of the reserve museum "Stalingrad Battle". Participants of the mourning event called "Donetsk: innocent victims" demanded to conduct an international investigation into the killings of civilians in Ukraine, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.