News

The Krasnodar Regional Court sentenced Andrei Bykov, one of the persons, accused of participation in massacre in the village of Kuschevskaya, to 20 years of imprisonment.

The entrepreneur Alovsat Mutallimov from the city of Sheki in northern Azerbaijan, who tried to set himself on fire on December 15 in protest against violation of his rights, continues to experience pressure. This was reported by Irada Javadova, the chair of the NGO "Public Association for Human Rights Education".

The large family of Revenko from Sochi is forced to live in a garage in the cemetery after demolition of their house, which was done to break the ground for building a road junction.

City court of Tbilisi partially granted the lawsuit of the persons injured during dispersal of an oppositional meeting of journalists and obliged the Ministry of Interior Affairs to undo harm to them.

Tonight members of power ministries attempted to stop a car of a sixty-year-old resident of Ingushetia Ruslan Ozdoev near one of the supplementary posts set at the entrance of the town of Karabulak. Representatives of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of the republic state that the man disobeyed their demand and was unintentionally killed during persecution and firing at the tyres by one of the bullets which supposedly ricocheted from a bumper.

On December, 26, technician from Georgia Yury Kulachkov perished in one of the military units of Azerbaijan. According to the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, he was pulled into a working turbine of an attack aircraft "Su-25".

Soldier of Inner Troops of Azerbaijan Kyanan Namazov was shot down by warrant officer of the military unit Hikmet Azizov. According to preliminary data, the shot was accidental.

On December, 26, Zeinal Bagirzade, Head of regional branch of civil movement for democracy "Public Chamber", was arrested for a term of three months for accusation of forgery of documents in Nakhichevan autonomous republic (NAR). This was the judgment of Nakhichevan city court.

Preliminary agreement on exchange of detainees between Georgia and South Ossetia; statement of Azerbaijani MFA about recognition by Mexican parliament of Khojaly events as genocide, which was refuted by Armenian press; rallies for fair elections in Russia, including in the south of Russia, - look these and other events in the Caucasus in the review of the week of December 19-25, 2011, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Magomed Abdullaev, the deputy of the Botlikh village assembly, received a letter from the Dagestani Prosecutor's Office, stating that in the course of the works in the Botlikh District, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) made a number of mistakes.

In Novorossiysk, the Krasnodar Territory, participants of a picket against violations at the elections to the Russian State Duma decided to publish on the Internet all facts of manipulations at voting and non-compliance with the Law "On elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation".

The organization "Internews-Georgia" has published a report on the study of the tolerance level and use of "hate speech" in the Georgian printed media with regard to ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. According to its summary, Georgian newspapers pay less attention to religious minorities in comparison with attention paid to ethnic and sexual ones.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Timashevsk District of the Krasnodar Territory sent lawsuits to the court to recover arrears to employees of the LLC (Limited Liability Company) "Yug-S" on a hunger strike since December 16.

Today, about 50 activists of the National Independence Party of Azerbaijan held in front of the French Embassy in Baku a protest action against the draft law, criminalizing denial of Armenian genocide.

The Chechen authorities have allocated 73 apartments to children without parental care. During next five years, they plan to provide housing to more than 400 other orphans.

Lawyers of Apti Magmadov and Aishat Magmadova intend to appeal against the verdict against their clients. They will also insist on full court's acquittal of their client and his sister, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

In Azerbaijan, the list of those pardoned has included three persons, earlier recognized by human rights defenders as political prisoners: Jabbar Savalan, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA); Nizami Shakhmuradov, a former OPON (riot police) commander; and Mekhman Mamedov, the driver and ex-Prosecutor of Baku.

In Sochi, on December 24, the famous ski resort "Roza Khutor" started its work. The holiday held on the occasion was attended by more than a thousand people.

On December 26, in the city of Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, a picket was held against criminal prosecution and arrest of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "I'm Authorized to State" Alexander Tolmachev, one of the leaders of local communists Vladislav Zhuravlyov and an activist of the entrepreneurs' movement Konstantin Astakhov.

Last night two unidentified masked and camouflaged persons fired upon a shop in Izerbash from self-firers. The shop flared up as a result. There are no victims or injured persons, the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Dagestan reports.