News

On May 4, hundreds of people held a demonstration in front of the French Senate in Paris in support of the bill assuming criminal liability for denial of the Armenian Genocide. The action was attended by about 500 persons.

The US government has increased the maximum term of visas for certain categories of Georgian citizens to 5 and 10 years. Earlier, the maximum term for all citizens was one year.

As reported by Aneta Gadieva, one of the members of the "Mothers of Beslan", the meeting of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with the victims of the terror act in September 2004 did not take place.

A verdict of guilty has been passed to a schoolgirl: on December 14, 2010, a 16-year-old pupil called the office of the programme "Conversation with Vladimir Putin" and reported to the operator knowingly false information about an impending terror act in the Moscow Region, said the spokesman of the Dagestani Prosecutor's Office.

On April 14, the Sovietskiy District Court of the city of Ulan-Ude started reconsidering the case of the Buryat journalists Nadezhda Nizovkina and Tatiana Stetsura on charges of inciting social hatred to employees of law enforcement bodies in their article about deportation of Caucasian nations. On April 29, another session took place, where the prosecution witnesses were questioned.

A rally of the People's Party is over in the capital of Armenia near the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts Matenadaran; however, the announced march along the route: Mashtots Avenue - Amiryan Street - Square of the Republic, was not held. The date of the next action was not announced.

Today, the suffered party - Larissa Baburova and Eduard Baburov - moved a petition at the trial on the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova about bringing a civil action against Nikita Tikhonov. They want to receive 5 million roubles in compensation for their moral harm and 40,000 roubles - for their material damage.

They perished in a collapsed building of a hostel, where they had been illegally placed two years before the tragedy, runs the verdict.

After in November 2008 journalists and public figures of Adygea sent a letter to President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev about the investigatory of the road accident involving the head of the Republic's "Rospotrebnadzor", on April 26 this year an answer came from the Chief Investigatory Department for the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) saying that the inquiry is within the competence of the Prosecutor's Office of Adygea. The Office, however, had stated earlier that journalists cannot interfere into the inquiry since they had nothing to do with the case.

Today, power engineers of Karachay-Cherkessia have planted, in the course of the action "Electric Grid in Defence of Environment", 360 young trees.

An explosive device was activated on May, 4, in the highway near the settlement of Nizhnie Makharhimahi, Dagestan, while a police car was passing, then unidentified people opened fire upon the policemen, one person perished, a source in law enforcement bodies of the republic reported today.

The investigation of the criminal case of murder of Anna Politkovskaya, observer of "Novaya Gazeta", has been prolonged till September, 7, 2011, official representative of Committee of Inquiry Vladimir Markin reported.

On May, 1, the Committee of the USA for international religious freedoms (constituted by the US Congress in 1998) issued its annual report on religious freedoms in 28 countries of the World.

On Tuesday, May, 3, the religious holyday All Souls' Day ("Radonitsa") in North Osetia, a commemoration requiem for the lost hostages and special squad soldiers, victims of terror of September, 2004, passed off at school No 1 of Beslan.

According to a survey undertaken by the organization "Transparency International", a slight progress was registered in the sphere of struggle against corruption in Armenia in 2010. The experts of the organization state that the police and the courts still remain the most corrupt bodies in Armenia.

On May, 4, during search in a suspected man's flat the personnel of law enforcement bodies confiscated a trotyl block of 200 gram weight, about five kilogram explosive on basis of cyclonite, a detonating cord, 15 mobiles, four passports, two portable radio transmitters and different seals and warrants on driving vehicles, law enforcement bodies of the capital reported.

On May 3, the World Press Freedom Day, human rights defenders held an action in support of independence of mass media near the building of the parliament in Tbilisi.

Bad weather has once again arranged a transport blockade of the resort city of Sochi; Deputies of Karachay-Cherkessia amend the Republic's Constitution; May Day was marked both in the South of Russia and in Transcaucasia, - look these and other events in the review of the week of April 25 to May 1, 2011, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

In Georgia, the social movement "Solidarity with Illegal Prisoners" demands resignation of Khatuna Kalmakhelidze, Minister for Corrections, Probation and Legal Aid of Georgia, because of death of a prisoner.

In Nazran, juveniles committed an abduction of a 14-year-old schoolgirl with the aim to enforce her into marriage. Now, the issue is considered to register the teens by the police. The Ingush MIA has addressed young people asking them to give up this way of marriage and warned about criminal responsibility for abductions.