News

Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia Elias II visited in prison Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, the son of the first President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who had been sentenced to 9.5 years of imprisonment. Keti Bekauri, Tsotne's advocate, supposes that the Patriarch asked the convict to stop his hunger strike.

Askhad Mamyshev, 18, who was injured in the terror act on May 26 at the Stavropol House of Culture, died last night, as reported by the city rescue service. Thus, the death toll of the terror act makes eight persons already.

The "International Society of Fair Elections and Democracy", the "Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia" and the Movement "Multinational Georgia", which monitored the course of local elections in Georgia, lodged, by the moment of the end of voting, 102 claims to district and constituency electoral commissions.

Today in Rostov-on-Don activists of oppositional organizations gathered to a rally in support of Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which was not sanctioned by the authorities. Law enforcers did not detain the protesters.

The Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria has ruled on liquidation of the public organization of the Board of Elders of the Balkar People of Kabardino-Balkaria (BEBP), due to its extremist activities. The representatives of organizations are going to appeal against this decision at the Supreme Court of Russia.

Today, the police of Armenia prevented a sit-in protest action, which was planned by activists of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) in the Freedom Square of Yerevan. Policemen accompanied by "red berets" removed from the square to a police station not only activists of the opposition, but also journalists. The total of detainees was 15 persons.

Today, the Supreme Court of Dagestan held its last session on the murder case of Farid Babaev, a public figure, a human rights activist and the leader of the regional branch of the "Yabloko" party. The prosecution asked for the convicted murder 16 years of colony with a strict regime. The judge will find the final verdict for Rasil Mamedrizaev on Thursday, June 3.

Aggravation of situation in Kabardino-Balkaria; resonant terror act in Stavropol; elections to local governments in Georgia, - look these and other events in the review of the week from May 24 to May 30, 2010, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

"On 28 May, a student of one of the Chechen institutions of higher education was seized in the center of Grozny by the republican law enforcement officers", an NGO representative in Chechnya told the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot".

Under preliminary data of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Georgia, after tabulation of ballot papers from 774 polling stations, the incumbent Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava, who is representing the party in power "United National Movement", is in the lead of the new election race. He has won 55.23 percent of votes. The runner-up is Irakli Alasaniya (19.5 percent), and Giorgi Chanturiya is in the third position (10.71 percent).

Workers of Chechen mass media were recommended to "reorient themselves" and "truthfully and objectively cover the events underway in the republic without silencing and concealing negative phenomena" - this was the task put in front of the heads of local mass media by Shamsail Saraliev, Minister on Foreign Relations, National Policy, Press and Information of Chechnya.

On May 13 in Ingushetia, employees of unidentified power agencies kidnapped Magomed Musaevich Garbakov, a resident of Sagopshi village, Malgobek District of the republic.

Activists of the initiative group "Electrozink. What do we breathe in?" held a picket near the building of the local Rospotrebnadzor (Russian Federal Agency for Consumer Supervision) in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, in protest against the amicable agreement concluded by the agency with the "Electrozink" Factory.

Mikhail Sova, 47, a resident of Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, who happened to be on March 7 in the area, where a special operation aimed to neutralize suspected militant Valery Etezov was conducted, was wounded by an occasional bullet. Now, he went to the Nalchik City Court.

Several districts of Rostov-on-Don were captured by hurricane accompanied by big hailstones. The calamity blocked the traffic; many cars were damaged by hailstones.

The Russian ICPO has initiated criminal cases against the officials of the GUVD (Chief Interior Department) of the Stavropol Territory, who had demonstrated their negligence in preparation for the concert at the local Palace of Culture. This was announced by Vladimir Markin, official spokesman of the ICPO.

Valuable trees were felled in the territory of the regional-value nature monument named "Upper Reach of Pshekha and Pshekhashko Rivers" causing the damage of 97.4 million roubles.

The NGO named "Georgian Emigrants" demands better life for Georgian emigrants and their families and announces that from May 29 on they start sitting protest actions in front of the parliament. Activists of the organization accuse authorities of inattention and threaten to go on hunger strike.

Children and teenagers of Adygea will be forbidden appear at night in public places without their parents.

The Division for Especially Important Cases of the Investigatory Department of the Russian ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office) for the Krasnodar Territory has sent to the Regional Court the criminal case about the series of explosions committed in Sochi in 2008-2009 and other crimes, as a result of which 14 persons perished and 20 more were wounded. Ilya Galkin, a former militiaman, and Mikhail Denisenko, an employee of a TV company, are accused of these crimes.