News

Today is exactly 15 years after the launch of an armed aggression against Dagestan undertaken on August 7, 1999, when militants – Wahhabis – invaded Dagestan from Chechnya. Today, Dagestan is commemorating the victims of those tragic events. The MPs of the Russian State Duma have promised in the near future to address the issue of the status of Dagestani militias, who participated in the warfare in Dagestan in 1999.

Since August 3, units of volunteers recruited from veterans of the Karabakh war are on combat duty jointly with the Defence Army on the contact line with Azerbaijan, said Eduard Khachatryan, the head of the office of the "Union of Azamartiks (Warriors-Liberators) of Artsakh".

In Yerevan, during the court hearing of the case against participants of the protest action held at Freedom Square on November 5, 2013, one of the policemen, who was recognized to be a victim, has admitted that he wore civilian clothes while on duty during the protest action. Several witnesses questioned by the court testified that plain-clothed policemen provoked a scuffle.

A 13-year-old boy was wounded as a result of shelling the village of Myulkyulyu located in the Tovuz District. A 10-year-old boy was wounded in the village of Kokhne Gishlag of the Agstafa District, Azerbaijani sources reported on August 6.

The capital of Georgia hosted an action of condemnation of mass persecution and oppression of Yazidis in the Sinjar District in northern Iraq. The event was organized by the NGO "House of Yazidis of Georgia" and was held on August 6 in front of the UN Office in Tbilisi, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

In Dagestan, advocate Sapiyat Magomedova and her client Rashid Magomedov are being kept without any legal grounds at the Kizilyurt ROVD (District Interior Division). This was reported by the advocate herself. In their turn, ROVD agents assert that nobody is preventing Sapiyat Magomedova from leaving the ROVD.

In Azerbaijan, independent institutions of civil society are facing problems in carrying out their activities in connection with the arrests of their accounts and inspections conducted by law enforcement and tax authorities, activists of several NGOs told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Fatima Kumykova, the wife of Riziuan Kamgotov, a resident of the village of Lechinkay, Chegem District of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), prosecuted for storing narcotics and explosives, sent a letter to Yuri Kokov, the Acting Head of the KBR, stating that the criminal case against her husband was unjustified.

In Dagestan, the police have put four alleged killers of Aitemir Salimgereev, the former head of the Kizilyurt GOVD (City Interior Division), on the wanted list.

Today, the Supreme Court (SC) of Dagestan has left the verdict to Zarema Bagavutdinova, an activist of the Dagestani Regional Public Organization (DRPO) "Pravozaschita" (Advocacy), unchanged.

As reported by Vasily Malaev, the head of the press service of the Rostov Regional Border Department of the Russian FSB, today, about 200 Ukrainian soldiers have been sent to Ukraine. In its turn, Ukraine has demanded from the Russian party to ensure the soldiers' immediate return to Ukraine.

Today, the Baku Court of Appeal (CoA) has dismissed the complaint lodged against the arrest of Leyla Yunus, the Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), accused of treason. The defence of Leyla Yunus intends to demand her release from the respective investigative authority.

In Azerbaijan, after a five-day break, the oppositional newspaper "Azadlyg" (Freedom) has resumed publication. This happened after the newspaper had partially repaid its debt to the publishing house "Azerbaijan", a state-owned enterprise. However, the editors believe that the newspaper can be suspended again, if the press distributor "Gasid" fails to repay its debt to the newspaper.

In the settlement-colony of the Tambov Region, the Krasnodar ecologist Evgeny Vitishko has stopped his hunger strike. The administration of the penitentiary institution has issued one more reprimand against the sentenced activist for violating the order of staying in the dungeon (punishment cell).

In the capital of Chechnya, a special commission has begun inspecting the city dormitories, which were used earlier as temporary accommodation centres (TACs) for forced migrants and refugees. Tenants of the former TACs associate the next wave of checks with the authorities' intention to evict as many families as possible in order to escape solving their housing problems.

On August 5, the fifth annual North-Caucasian Youth Forum "Mashuk-2014" was opened in Pyatigorsk, the Stavropol Territory, reports its organizing committee. More than 2500 young people from seven subjects of the North-Caucasian Federal District are taking part in the forum that will last till August 17.

In Yerevan, activists of the office "In support of Levon Airapetyan" call on citizens to attend on August 7 a march in support of one of the richest members of the Armenian Diaspora in Russia, who was arrested as a figurant of the "Bashneft" case.

Yakov Etinger, one of the founders of the Society "Memorial", the author of the book "From Holocaust to Beslan", died at 84, the "Memorial" has reported.

Two armed men were shot dead by policemen during a shootout today in Makhachkala, the Dagestani MIA reports. An occasional passerby was slightly injured. Both attackers were later identified as members of armed underground.

The international human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) has recognized Rasul Jafarov, arrested in Azerbaijan on charges of committing economic crimes, as a "prisoner of conscience". The AI has called to release Jafarov; and this demand was also supported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW).