News

The mourning actions in Beslan started on September 1 and lasted for 3 days. On September 3, mourning actions were also held in Moscow.

Svetlana Kravchenko, a journalist from Sochi, who was covering the case of Dmitri Novikov, former judge of the Khosta District Court of the Krasnodar Territory, accused of plundering "Olympic" lands, is now receiving threats.

One Azerbaijani soldier was killed and several more wounded by a mine explosion in the contact line of Azerbaijani and Nagorno-Karabakh troops, as reported by the press service of the defence army of this breakaway and non-recognized republic.

In Makhachkala, a car was blown up, and one person was lost, while two others, including Bekmurza Bekmurzaev, local minister for national policy, foreign relations and information, were wounded.

Rita Kanametova, a resident of the city of Baksan in Kabardino-Balkaria has addressed her complaint to the prosecutor's office of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and human rights organizations saying that a person, who presented himself as an employee of the FSB Department for Kabardino-Balkaria, confiscated her car BMW-520. Later it appeared that there is no such employee in the Department.

Nine persons who were injured during natural fires in the Volgograd Region are still hospitalized, while 19 more victims are taking their out-patient treatment, as reported by the Southern Regional Centre (SRC) of the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of the Russian Federation.

Today at midday, the Manezh Square of Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, was the venue of the farewell ceremony of the participants of the ascent on Mount Kazbek. In total, the international expedition is 200 persons strong, including climbers from all Russian regions, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan and South Ossetia.

Lydia Gomkargieva, principal of School No. 3 of the city of Karabulak in Ingushetia, has not allowed a five-form schoolgirl, as her mother reports, to attend school in a hijab. Another higher school pupil was not let to lessons in a headscarf and a long school uniform. The ministry of general and vocational training of Ingushetia has sent a special commission to this school.

Yesterday, on September 2, a traditional day of silence was held in Beslan: during the whole day people kept coming to School No. 1 and memorial cemetery in "City of Angels" to pay tribute of memory to victims of the terror act in September 2004.

Last night, certain armed people opened fire on the people who gathered in the mosque yard in the Lyankyaran District of Azerbaijan in the south of the country. The district police authority reports that one villager was lost, and one more was wounded.

A man of 24 died in one of the cells of the investigatory isolation facility (known as "SIZO") No. 1 of the city of Krasnodar. The ICPO for the Krasnodar Territory is conducting a pre-inquiry check of the circumstances of the detainee's death.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has upheld the decision of the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria on changing the freedom restriction regime for Kazbek Budtuev, a defendant in the case dealing with the attack on power agencies of Nalchik on October 13, 2005. After five years in SIZO (pre-trial prison) he was transferred into house arrest. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by advocate Liza Shak.

On September 2, the office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Nazran hosted a meeting of human rights activists and applicants to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with members of the European Parliament. In total, eight European parliamentarians came to Ingushetia; the delegation was headed by Heidi Hautala, chair of the human rights committee.

As a results of negotiations of Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan Dmitri Medvedev and Ilham Aliev, today in Baku four documents were signed, including the bilateral treaty on stat border with an appendix on the procedure of border crossing.

In Ingushetia, members of the alternative parliament - Mekhk-Kkhela - never tried to contact the republic's leadership, said Kaloy Akhilgov, press secretary of President of Ingushetia. According to Ingush oppositionist Magomed Khazbiev, the main reason for restarting the alternative parliament is that Yunus-Bek Evkurov is continuing the policy of his predecessor Murat Zyazikov.

Heidi Hautala, chair of the human rights committee of the European Parliament, who is a member of the delegation of the European MPs who met on September 2 Ingush human rights activists, has criticized the kidnapping and torture of Islam Umarpashaev and called the Russian authorities not to press him in the context of Umarpashaev's readiness to help in establishing his kidnappers.

As reported by Vladimir Markin, official spokesman of the Russian Investigatory Committee under the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO), the Committee is currently investigating a number of criminal cases opened against officials in the Volgograd Region. Crime attributes may be revealed in bureaucrats' actions (or inaction) related to mass natural fires. Now, the investigation has data about five persons lost in fires on September 2.

As a result of the hurricane that fell last night on the republic, hundreds of houses and electric networks were damaged in the Prokhladny District of Kabardino-Balkaria. As reported by the local department of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies, over 10,000 residents remained without electricity, and two persons were taken to hospital with traumas.

In Dagestan, today in the morning, the car of lieutenant colonel Ahmed Abdullaev, head of the Russia's FSB division for the Tsumadin District of the republic, was blow up killing the owner. Then, the unknown persons, who organized the explosion, wounded a militiaman, the Russia's ICPO has reported.

Last night unknown persons shelled the house of the head of the personnel division of the Sunzha ROVD of Ingushetia; the militiaman was lost, and his wife was hospitalized, said a source in law enforcement bodies of the republic.