News

In the course of the rally "For Faith, Kuban and Fatherland", held in Krasnodar on March 31, several activists decided to hold solo pickets in the same area calling to forgive the Pussy Riot performers. They were stopped by the rally securities, who tore into pieces the posters with quotations from the Bible, the activists said. The authorities and Cossacks refused to comment their actions.

Search of the flat of Geidar (Heydar) Jemal in Moscow; set up of commission for militants' adaptation and demand of resignation of Derev, Member of the Federation Council in Karachay-Cherkessia; approval of Konstantin Khramov, Mayor of Nevinnomyssk, as Prime Minister of the Volgograd Region; rally of oppositional Armenian National Congress in Yerevan; Azerbaijanis mark Genocide Day, – look these and other events in the Caucasus in the review of the week of March 26-April 1, 2012, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Elena Spasskaya, Director of the Sochi Municipal Enterprise "Direction for Operating Trade Gallery", accused of a large-scale fraud, has undergone a surgery at Oncology Hospital No. 4 and was returned to the SIZO (pre-trial prison).

The Government of the Russian Federation confirmed the right of “Kroton” limited company of recovery of 20 ton sand in the Black sea shelf opposite the health resort of Anapa, representatives of “Environmental Watch on North Caucasus” state.

More than ten thousand people gathered today at a rally in Chistyakov Grove in Krasnodar in support of revival of spiritual and moral values. The event was caused by the "punk prayer" staged in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral by the group named "Pussy Riot".

The commemoration ceremony in memory of victims of ethnic clashes in March 1918 was held in different regions of Azerbaijan.

The official statement of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) of Russia states that its employees were not involved in detention of Rustam Aushev, a resident of Ingushetia, who disappeared on February 17.

The action against felling of trees on one of the main streets of the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, scheduled for March 30 in Stepanakert, did not took place, because of absence of participants.

Sergey Mironov, the leader of the political party "Spravedlivaya Rossiya" (Fair Russia), and Nikolai Levichev, the chairman of the party, met the political hunger-strikers in Astrakhan.

The list of voters of Armenia contained the name of the late President of the National Academy of Sciences Fadey Sargsyan. The mistake was corrected after noticed by the opposition newspaper "Aikakan Zhamanak" (Armenian Time).

Residents of the city of Mikhailovka, Volgograd Region, have protested against the state of urban roads by means of a flash mob. Motorists were indignant with the way the road service workers repair the carriageway – they jut fill the pits and holes with old bricks.

This May, the Swiss party will choose a company, which will monitor cargo traffic in the checkpoints on the Psou River (the Abkhazian section of the border), Roki (the South-Ossetian section of the border) and in Lars.

In Moscow, Tamara Novikova, the mother and defender of Judge Dmitry Novikov, has suspended her solo pickets until Monday, April 2, hoping to have her problem solved by the Ministry of Justice.

The airports of the Krasnodar Territory will participate in the international "Earth Hour" initiated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and will today turn off the illumination for one hour.

In Dagestan, relatives of 31-year old Magomed Murtuzaliev and 30-year-old Abdula Murtuzaliev cannot establish their whereabouts and fear that they might be kidnapped and that their lives and health are at risk. Their mother Zoya Abdulaeva, a resident of Makhachkala, appealed to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" asking to help find her disappeared sons.

The Investigatory Department of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) in the Krasnoyarsk Territory conducts investigation into the fact of beating in the Krasnoyarsk SIZO-1 (pre-trial prison) of Aslan Cherkesov, a native of the city of Nalchik, who was convicted for the murder of the football fan Yegor Sviridov committed in Moscow, and who serves his sentence in the region. This was reported by Olga Volobueva, Senior Assistant of the Prosecutor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In Sochi, several local residents suffered during the picket against cutting down trees in the territory of the children's centre in Konstitutsii Street. A woman-protestor was delivered to hospital.

In Astrakhan, participants of the political hunger strike did not receive from the Central Election Commission (CEC) videos from the webcams, which were operating at city electoral precincts on March 4, and began to publish their available videos on the Internet, since they fear that the records may disappear from the resource of the Ministry of Communications and the "Rostelecom".

Rosa Aishaeva, a resident of the town of Tyrnyauz, and Larisa Nagoeva, a resident of the city of Nalchik, appeal to human rights activists to help in defending the rights of their sons, Murat Aishaev and Murat Nagoev, who, according to the women, had been kidnapped by power agents. According to the women, the young people were tortured to confess to belonging to militant groupings.

In Armenia, for the first time, a blogger intends to participate in the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 6. Izabella Abgaryan, who writes under the nickname of iza1976, is being nominated by proportional system from the "Heritage" Party.