News

The field commander of Syrian militants Jundallah Shishani, whose death in the city of Cobani became known on December 8, originated from the same village in the Georgia's Pankisi Gorge as the commander of the northern sector of the "Islamic State" (IS) Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as Omar Shishani.

In the Dagestani settlement of Vremenny, the special commission set up for assessing the damage made a repeated visit and found 52 houses unfit for living and subject to demolition. Residents of the settlement state large-scale destructions, looting and non-payment of compensations.

The lawyers of the Joint Mobile Group (JMG) of rights defenders, working in Chechnya, have appealed to law enforcement bodies asking them to conduct a check the fact of visit to their office of three men and the subsequent fire in the premises, as well as the fact of persecuting them by men in masks on December 13.

Residents of the city of Gudermes have reported the destruction, within the past two days, of two private houses inhabited by relatives of the militants killed during the attack on Grozny on December 4. According to journalist Elena Milashina, families with young children are now homeless.

According to preliminary information, law enforcers are conducting confiscation of documents relating to allocation of land plots in Khasavyurt and in the Khasavyurt District, the RIA "Dagestan" reports.

Construction workers are repairing the facade of the house in Grozny, which houses the burnt-out office of the Joint Mobile Group (JMG) of rights defenders. Local observers do not rule out that the fire in the office could be committed by people dissatisfied with their work.

The international human rights organization "Reporters Without Borders" (RWB) has published a report about the journalists, killed, kidnapped and jailed in 2014. Timur Kuashev, journalist and rights defender from Kabardino-Balkaria, is named as the only Russian reporter killed for professional reasons.

This year, Igor Tsagoev, a journalist from Nalchik, has been awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize "For Journalism as a Deed". The list of finalists comprised journalists from Volgograd and Makhachkala.

The family of Magomed Kamalov, a resident of Izberbash, who was killed on December 12 in the Kayakent District of Dagestan, has not yet received his body for burial, said one of Kamalov's relatives. The GOVD (City Interior Division) of Izberbash has clarified that the casualty was not on the wanted list.

Prior to the fire in the office, some Chechen rights defenders had been deliberately spreading false information about the activities of the Committee against Torture (CaT) and inflating the situation, said Igor Kalyapin, the head of the CaT.

Relatives of Pakhrudin Magomedov, a missing resident of the Dagestani village of Tyube, have found his body in the morgue of the city of Kizilyurt, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" has reported.

Murad Zalitinov, a former head of the Kadar unit of "Imarat Kavkaz", was killed on December 12 in a special operation in Dagestan, said the press service of the Russian FSB.

The preliminary investigation into the criminal case of Rasul Djafarov, the coordinator of the campaign "Arts for Democracy", is over in Azerbaijan. After the rights defender gets acquainted with the indictment, the case will go to the Baku Court of Grave Crimes.

Magomed Aliev, a student, suspected of promoting terrorism, has been transferred from the intensive care unit to the neurosurgery ward of the Stavropol City Hospital No. 4. His relatives have appealed to the head of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) stating the misconduct of local investigators.

In Azerbaijan, Intigam Aliev, the head of the NGO "Legal Education Society", was presented a new charge – under the article of a large-scale embezzlement, under which he is under a threat of up to 12 years in prison.

The Dagestani lawyers Sapiyat Magomedova and Musa Suslanov receive threats associated with their activities, said the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) and invited to sign an appeal for their defence.

Burned down houses of militants' relatives in Chechnya; condemnation by Russian rights defenders of principle of collective responsibility, and the subsequent incidents with them in Grozny; end of hunger strike in Dagestan demanding to restore Tarki District; Geneva discussions on safety in Southern Caucasus; attacks on oppositionactivists in Armenia; next humanitarian convoy from Russia to Donbas; special operations in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, during which nine suspected militants were killed, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of December 8-14, 2014, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe (CE) has issued a positive opinion on the amendments passed in Azerbaijan to the law "On Non-Governmental Organizations", said Tatiana Baeva, the spokesperson for the commission.

Employees of the Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have stood up for the Chechen Committee against Torture (CaT), indicating the damage of CaT's property and attempts to put pressure on rights defenders.

Djamal Makhmudov, a native of Dagestan, disappeared in Stavropol after a search of his house. He is a figurant in the case of recruitment and financing the militants travelling to Syria, his relatives were told at the Centre to Combat Extremism.