News

As reported by Natalia Nesterenko, a casting-vote member of the Precinct Election Commission (PEC) No. 538 of the city of Astrakhan, on March 2, at about 4:00 p.m. Moscow time, an attempt was registered to sign the final voting protocol of the presidential election well in advance.

In the village of Gulustan, Geranboy District of Azerbaijan, Lieutenant Gurban Guseinov got wounded by a mine explosion.

In Chechnya, local residents are under pressure to vote with the aim to raise the voter turnout on the election day; while employees of state institutions were obliged to be present at polling stations throughout the whole day on March 4, local residents assert.

On March 2, in the capital of Azerbaijan, independent journalists and leaders of political parties and NGOs paid tribute to Elmar Guseinov, the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Monitor".

On March 2, the initiative group "Union of Free Association" lodged to the Tbilisi City Court a lawsuit against the Central Election Commission (CEC), which had refused to register their question for a referendum.

Today, the Azerbaijani Nakhichevan Court for Serious Crimes completed the process against Zeinal Bagirzade, the local oppositional activist. The court sentenced him to 7.5 years of imprisonment, having found the defendant guilty on three Articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan, including fraud. According to the Zeinal Bagirzade's lawyer, the verdict will be challenged.

In the Krasnodar Territory, Suren Gazaryan and Evgeny Vitishko, the members of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus", were involved as suspects in the criminal case on the fact of damage to the fence in the forest reserve territory near the summer cottage belonging to Governor Alexander Tkachov. The ecologists signed recognizance not to leave as pre-trial restriction measures.

Russia is ready to introduce visa-free regime with Georgia and to establish diplomatic relations with it. This was announced by Alexander Lukashevich, Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Russian Federation. In response, the Georgian side has stated that the diplomatic relations are not possible as long as Russia continues to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The oppositionist Vladislav Ryazantsev, the coordinator of the "Left-Wing Front" in the Rostov Region, arrested after the rally "For Fair Elections", was sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest under Article "Disorderly conduct". Starting from today, the convicted man went on a hunger strike.

On February 28, in the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan, the lawyer Patimat Abdulgamidovna Abdulaeva was attacked at the lawyer's office by two unidentified men. Dagestani law enforcement bodies reveal the reasons for the attack.

The problem of journalists' safety in Azerbaijan is still valid, and it requires effective measures to protect the journalists. This was emphasized by participants of the "round table" entitled "Development and improvement of system for journalists' safety in Azerbaijan" held on March 2 in Baku.

Residents of the capital of Dagestan complain about pressure on voters on the eve of the election of Russian President. According to their story, the republic's authorities are trying to raise the voter turnout. The Ministry of Education and Sciences of Dagestan, which is accused of using their administrative resources, said that working to improve the voter turnout within the law.

Today, in the city of Kamyshin, Volgograd Region, two women who agitated for the presidential candidate Sergey Mironov, the leader of the "Spravedlivaya Rossiya" (Fair Russia) Party, were attacked by unidentified persons. Suspects were arrested and now checked by the police.

Murat Kunashev, a resident of the city of Nartkaly, Kabardino-Balkaria, was kidnapped by unidentified armed men, who questioned him about his acquaintance with militants and forced him by torture to sign some documents. Then they let him go.

On March, 1, two officials of the Administration of Karabudakhkent district of Dagestan were detained for suspicion of receiving a bribe to a sum of ten million rubles, the republican Ministry of Interior Affairs informed.

Head of Dagestan ordered the Ministry of Public Health of the republic to pay the total cost of treatment of Malik Ahmadov, a nineteen-years-old native of the settlement of Kurakh, Kurakh district of Dagestan, who became disabled saving his peer girl who was sinking in the Caspian sea and consider the question of rewarding him.

Rasul Abdulkarimov, resident of Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, was carried away in an unknown direction by armed and camouflaged people, his sister Asiyat Abdulkarimova reported. Officials of District Department of Interior Affairs of Khasavyurt district state that they have no such a detainee.

The international organization "Human Rights Watch" (HRW) has presented a study on the facts of mass violations of citizens' property rights in Baku. On February 29, the presentation of the document "I have been deprived of everything: forced resettlements in Baku, illegal expropriation and destruction of property" was held at the Baku Hotel "Diplomat".

On February 29, in Azerbaijan, the Nakhichevan Court for Grave Crimes began a trial on case against the political activist Zeinal Bagirzade.

Omar Sagidmagomedov, a member of the City Bar Association "Kavkaz", was murdered by power agents; however, the investigatory authorities are in no haste to investigate the criminal case instituted on the fact of the murder. This was reported by Sagidmagomedov's colleagues on February 29.