News

The Sochi court dealing with assaulting a court marshal has placed the defendant under home arrest, demanding her presence at the session scheduled for July 25. The defendant claims that she has medical documents confirming the impossibility of her presence at the trial.

Human rights activists have collected 250 signatures to the petition addressed to the leadership of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) with a demand to make every effort to investigate the murder of Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

Batyr Pukhaev and his brother Igor Pukhaev were detained on July 11; and on July 14, the Tskhinvali Court ruled to arrest them for two months and place them into the temporary detention facility (known as IVS) in Tskhinvali.

A group of Azerbaijani civil society activists has announced a start of an international campaign in defence of the rights of Gasan Guseinli from the city of Ganja (Gandzha), the head of the Educational Centre "Intellectual Citizen", who was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment.

On Wednesday, July 16, two Ukrainian border guards were heavily wounded on the Rostov section of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

The Tver Court of Moscow has accepted for consideration a lawsuit on protection of honour and dignity against the MP of the Russian State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky for his statements concerning the Azerbaijani people. This was reported by Ekaterina Korotova, the press secretary of the above court, who is quoted by the RAPSI.

Investigating authorities of the Karachay-Cherkessian Republic (KChR) have announced the names of two residents of the republic, wanted on suspicion of murdering Mukhamed Kunizhev, a Deputy of the Republic's National Assembly.

On July 15, David Narmaniya, the newly elected Mayor of Tbilisi, held his first consultation with the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament on the issue of attestation rules for current and future employees of the Mayoralty.

A resident of Pyatigorsk, accused of a sexual assault against a minor, was on a hunger strike in SIZO (pre-trial prison) of the city of Cherkessk for 11 days. His protest action was announced on July 2 after he attempted to commit suicide right at the Supreme Court of Karachay-Cherkessia, where his criminal case was considered.

A number of human rights activists and politicians have sent an appeal to Gennady Kornienko, Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (known as FSIN) of the Russian Federation about inadmissibility of baiting of the Krasnodar ecologist Evgeny Vitishko in Colony-Settlement No. 2 of the Tambov Region.

Five years after the murder of Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", an action "Flowers for Natalia" was held in Moscow, organized by activists of the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI).

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found no violation in the case of Izet Ashlarba, a citizen of Georgia, who was convicted for links with the organized crime.

In Azerbaijan, the arrest of journalist Rauf Mirkadirov, accused of treason, has been extended by other four months. This decision was made by the Nasimi District Court of Baku in satisfaction of the petition lodged by the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Azerbaijan.

The advocates of the dismissed Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov and his nephew Yusup Djaparov, convicted on charges of planning a terror act, have filed a complaint against the verdict, said Vladimir Postanyuk, the head of the defence group.

Three residents of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic are accused of involvement in a criminal grouping engaged in cashing the maternity capital in North Ossetia and KBR, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has reported.

The Moscow City Court (MCC) has completed the judicial investigation into the murder of Yegor Scherbakov, a resident of the Moscow district of Biryulyovo; the parties' debates are scheduled for July 21.

According to investigators, the preliminary inquiry into the case of Emil Mamedov, the head of the NGO "Democracy Promotion", acting in the country's south, is over; and in the near future the case will go to court.

As reported by the Investigating Department (ID) for Chechnya of the ICRF, two residents of the village of Katar-Yurt, Achkhoy-Martan District of Chechnya, are suspected of aiding members of illegal armed formations (IAFs).

The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Abkhazia has registered four candidates for the early presidential election scheduled for August 24. The former Deputy Prime Minister Beslan Eshba was denied registration – in the opinion of the linguistic commission, he is not fluent enough in the official state language.

Exactly five years have expired since the kidnapping and death in Chechnya in 2009 of Natalya Estemirova, an employee of the Grozny representative office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".