News

The Building Bridges international camp took place in Rondine from 18th to 31th July 2011. Among the participants, twenty young Abkhazians and twenty young Georgians, along with Rondine's students and young adults from the Italian civil society. The initiative, realized through the COBERM program “Confidence Building Early Response Mechanism”, was funded by the EU and managed by the UNDP.

According to human rights activists, two young people were carried away from their houses by force and cruelly beaten up in Staropromislovsky district of Grozny. Law enforcement bodies of Chechnya do not confirm this information.

The leaders of several human rights organizations of Armenia express their concern about the situation in the Armenian Army and declare that, if no serious steps on solving crimes in the army are taken within a month, they will demand resignation of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

In 2001, Ayub Dovletukaev, a resident of the village of Dzhalka of Gudermes District of the Chechen Republic, who was kidnapped and murdered in Chechnya, was sentenced on charges of involvement on the militants' side in the armed clash, which took place in the hospital of Gudermes, and he was serving his term in a psychiatric hospital. In 2005, unidentified armed men kidnapped Rustam Dovletukaev, his brother.

The Alliance for Protection of Political Freedoms (APPF) issued a statement expressing concern about the increasing number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. According to the APPF, eleven people sentenced in the country during the three summer months of this year are political prisoners.

On August 29, Roman Magomadov, a medrese teacher, and his students Rustam Seliev, Viskhan Geliskhanov and Ruslan Sakkazov, who had been kidnapped in Chechnya, were released.

On September 6, an opening ceremony of the beach intended for women and children, named "Goryanka" (Mountain Woman), was held in the city of Makhachkala. The beach has its own security system, and it is fenced off from the outside world. This project, carried out by a private investor, was supported by the city administration, which believed that the beach would be able to assist in solving many social problems of Dagestani women.

The organizer of the memorial rally on the seventh anniversary of the death of 384 persons during the hostage-taking terror act in Beslan was released by the police and waits for summon.

Today, at about 6:30 a.m. local time, an explosion occurred at the steel mill located in the Azerbaijani capital and injuring three people.

An unidentified person made a shot at Salautdin Mamakov, the representative of the head of the Chechen Republic in the Sverdlovsk Region. This was reported by the Department for the Sverdlovsk Region of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).The incident occurred at 7:45 p.m. on September 5 near No. 52 in Aviatsionnaya Street.

The Volgograd Prosecutor's Office accuses an officer of the road-and-post service of taking a bribe.

The Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR) sees continued pressure on local human rights activists, who made public the death of Zeinalov, a resident of the village of Arazin from the Djulfin District. Malakhat Nasibova, the head of the Regional Resource Centre for Development of NGOs and Democracy, said that she received threats.

Representatives of ecologic movements in Krasnodar region tried to picket a so-called "Putin's country-house" in support of activist of "Solidarity" Victor Chirikov. The action was headed by Evgenia Chirikova, leader of the movement in protection of Khimki forest and the detainee's namesake.

Human rights activists in the capital of Armenia organized an action of protest in front of the Embassy of Belarus demanding release of human rights activist Ales Belyatsky.

On September, 5, young activists of Armenian National Congress (ANC) organized a procession in the center of Yerevan in protection of activist Tigran Arakelyan who is currently in custody for accusation of hooliganism and using force against a representative of authority.

The Labour party of Georgia appealed to the foreign embassies accredited in the territory of the country and Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg calling to pay attention to the prison conditions and state of health of Georgian footballer Giorgi Demetradze.

Today, residents of the Dubovskiy Municipal District of the Volgograd Region have planned two pickets against the authorities. Also today, residents of the district conduct a protest action in Volgograd.

Power agents kidnapped and tortured Murat Bizhev, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, forcing him to confess of keeping a grenade. This is stated in the message of the HRC "Memorial", where Bizhev turned for help, received by the "Caucasian Knot".

The Basmanny Court of Moscow has extended until December 7 the custody of Rustam Makhmudov, a native of Chechnya, accused of murdering the observer of the "Novaya Gazeta" Anna Politkovskaya.

Today, the Moscow Regional Court has held a session on the criminal case against two natives of Chechnya - Apti and Aishat Magmadov, accused of promoting terrorism and setting up illegal armed formations (IAFs). At the request of the prosecutor, their custody was extended till December 22, 2011.