News

A criminal case under the articles of the Criminal Code, which assume responsibility for disorderly conduct and rendering resistance to state officials, was initiated against a group of Azerbaijani believers, who held on May 6 a rally outside the Ministry of Education in Baku demanding the freedom for wearing hijabs in schools.

On May 6, the central square of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, hosted the opening ceremony of the International Bicycle Races. They are attended by over fifty athletes from Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, Estonia, Romania, Austria, Germany and France.

On May 6, more than 40 private houses were flooded in the capital of North Ossetia as a result of rain and hail that attacked the city: roads were washed off; power lines were broken; and some buildings lost their roofs, reports the administration of the head of the republic.

Citizens of Georgia will be able to work legally in the territory of France; 200 jobs have been allocated for this purpose, said Giorgi Vashadze, Deputy Minister of Justice of Georgia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan intend to discuss the issue of increased concentration of snipers on the contact line of the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan and other topical problems during the visit on May 9-13 to Southern Caucasus of Petros Efthimiou, head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE.

Within the project "Grandmother Online", Rostov-on-Don hosts the action "Safe Internet for Veterans" with the task to teach elderly people to computer skills.

The suspected member of the armed underground, who was killed on May 6 in the Zavodskoy District of the capital of Chechnya, was identified as Muslim Agiev, 26, a native of Ingushetia, the local police reports.

The construction of the gas pipeline named Nabucco, intended to transport gas from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU countries has been postponed till 2013. The consortium named "Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH" has disseminated this information.

In Nagorno-Karabakh, the construction of the Stepanakert Airport is nearing its completion - it is ready to make flights by 80 percent, said Dmitry Adbashyan, Head of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) under the Government of Nagorno-Karabakh.

On May 5, the territory of Kabardino-Balkaria was crossed by a memory caravan of victims of terror and war, which started in Vladikavkaz. The tour over the cities of Southern Russia on horses and camels was organized by the NGO "Right to Peace".

A verdict was passed at today's session of the Moscow City Court on the murder case of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova. At 11:32 a.m., the court sentenced Tikhonov to life imprisonment in a special security colony; and Khasis - to 18 years of imprisonment in a minimum security colony, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports from the courtroom.

Evgeniy Dunaev, former chairman of the City Duma, who was convicted by the Astrakhan Court on charges of defamation during his performances on TV with criticism of Astrakhan authorities, intends to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), because he believes his verdict to be unfair. Mr Dunaev himself told about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Today in the morning, several hundreds of believers held a protest action in front of the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan against the ban to wear hijabs in schools, introduced in November last year. Policemen tried to disperse the protesters; in the course of the confrontation, one of the women lost consciousness, and dozens of people were beaten and detained.

The body of Ilez Gorchkhanov, a local resident, who was kidnapped in Nazran, was identified by his relatives. As stated by power agents, the body had no external signs of violent death; however, according to his relative, the body was disfigured by torture.

The social services of the Elbrus District, Kabardino-Balkaria, are compiling lists of residents affected by the introduction of the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Mussa Dzhappuev, deputy head of the administration of Elbrus settlement.

On April 26, Seiran Kochkanyan, Chairman of the Tver Regional Branch of the "Union of Russian Armenians", and Fayaz Pashaev, Chairman of National-Cultural Autonomy of Azerbaijanis "AzKa-Tver", signed a joint appeal to residents of the city, in which they apologized for the behaviour of the participants in the fight that burst out on April 24 in the Zavolzhskiy District of Tver between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

In the morning on May 6, Suren Gazaryan, a Member of the Board of the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" was attacked by unidentified persons in the Khimki Forest near Moscow. The ecologist received minor injuries and wrote an application to the police.

Young journalists, members of the Independent community of journalists ("NOZH") organized an action "Victory Mail" in Rostov-on-Don, representative of the community Karina Kravchuk told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The web-site "Voice of Ingushetia" (golosingushetii.ru) has been disabled already for several days, representatives of the web-site told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. Before that the web-site had undergone a powerful attack and was working several days without fully functioning.

Constitutors of "Express-Diagnostika" company in Tbilisi have been detained for misappropriation of state finance. They are accused of legalization of illegal income (money laundering) and forgery of the customs documentation.