News

Today, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan has adopted the act of amnesty, which is dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the late President Geidar Aliev. According to the authorities' data, the amnesty will affect 9000 persons, of whom, 2000 persons will be exempted from further serving their prison sentences. Representatives of the civil society of Azerbaijan question the validity of those numbers and expressed their disappointment with the fact that the amnesty did not affect political prisoners and "prisoners of conscience".

The Azerbaijani authorities should immediately halt the campaign of forced evictions of Baku residents and demolition of houses in the Azerbaijan's capital. This was declared by the human rights organization "Human Rights Watch" (HRW). The human rights defenders also demanded that the government should provide fair compensation to the evicted people.

The protest action in the form of art picket in support of defendants in the case on riots in Bolotnaya Square was held near the building of the Krasnodar Mayoralty. Artist Eldar Ganeev, the initiator of the protest action, was detained and brought to the police station.

On May 6, Zarema Bagautdinova from the Dagestani regional organization "Pravozaschita" (Advocacy) was detained by policemen when she tried to make a video record with her mobile phone of the search conducted in a house of a female resident of Buinaksk. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Aisha Selimkhanova, a staff member of the organization "Pravozaschita".

Nikolai Cherniavskiy, an activist of the "Left-Wing Front", who was arrested on May 6 after a rally to demand freedom for political prisoners in Volgograd, is back at large.

On May 6, fire-fighters liquidated a fire of an outbuilding in the territory of the household of the Porfiriev family in Amurskaya Street in Astrakhan. According to Regina Porfirieva, the cause of the fire was arson.

The advocates of Yusup Temerkhanov, who was today convicted by the court for killing the former Colonel Yuri Budanov and sentenced to 15 years in a high security colony and 1.5 years of restricted freedom, have appealed against the verdict of guilty. In their turn, the prosecutors and the victims said they were satisfied with the verdict and consider it legitimate.

In Azerbaijan, since May 3, two mobile operators - the Azercell and the Bakcell - stopped, at the same time, providing free-of-charge services to subscribers of social networks on the Internet. The decision was explained by technical reasons; however, civil society activists and individual Internet users see a political subtext in it - the restriction on the access to the Facebook was introduced on the threshold of the presidential election upcoming in October 2013.

The authorities of South Ossetia have handed over to the Georgian party 12 persons detained for crossing the administrative border, the Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has reported today.

Today, the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court of Moscow has appointed on May 24 the consideration of the applications lodged by the International Society "Memorial" and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and challenging the actions of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office when inspecting the above organizations.

The investigation into the criminal case against Ivan Gerter, ex-Chairman of the Government of Kabardino-Balkaria, accused of fraud, has been completed. This was reported by the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).

The family members of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot dead by the police at detention after the terror act committed on April 15 in Boston, face problems in finding a place for his burial. This was reported by Peter Stefan, the funeral home director in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. After the protest actions held by city residents, it is unknown when and where the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, suspect of terrorism, will be buried.

Leila Yunus, a well-known Azerbaijani human rights defender, Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), was awarded the international prize named after Theodore Hecker. On May 5, the German town of Esslingen-am-Neckar held an award ceremony.

Voting to the Board of Elders; verdict of guilty passed by jury to Yusup Temerkhanov, accused of killing Yuri Budanov; distribution of quotas allocation for Hajj-2013 by Hajj Mission of Russia; legitimization of Mikhail Savva's arrest in Krasnodar and clash of locals with securities at construction site of TPP in Sochi; explosion in Makhachkala killing two children; start of discussing amendments to the law "On Occupied Territories" and Georgia's decision to take part in Sochi Olympics, - see the review of major events in the Caucasus during the week of April 29-May 5, 2013, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

At the exit post "Gerzel", located between Dagestan and Chechnya, power agents tried to detain Said-Khusein Tsarnaev, a photojournalist of the RIA "Novosti" in Northern Caucasus, a distant relative of Tsarnaev brothers, suspected of committing the terror act in Boston. This was reported to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by the journalist himself.

The trial of Degi Dudaev, the son of the first head of the Chechen Republic Johar Dudaev, began in Lithuania. He is accused of participating in a criminal grouping, engaged in forging passports.

A native of Azerbaijan Ramil Ismailov died of a gunshot wound during a mass brawl in the south-west of Moscow. Two other participants of the fight, also natives of Southern Caucasus, were hospitalized with stab wounds.

Kamal Shagabutdinov and his son Shamil, in whose household, according to the police of Buinaksk, some ammunition was found, were detained. The ammunition had been planted on Kamal Shagabutdinov during the search, his daughter-in-law Aisha asserts.

The religious community of Muslims "Darul-Arqam" in Moscow, in the mosque of which 140 parishioners had been detained on suspicion of belonging to extremist religious organizations, has suspended its operation for an indefinite period, said one of the believers; however, so far there is no official confirmation of the information from the leadership of the community.

Today, employees of law enforcement bodies blew up three private houses belonging to suspects of having links with militants in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk, as local residents told the "Caucasian Knot". The local Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has confirmed only one explosion.