News

In Georgia, the MPs from the parliamentary majority have drafted a bill on amending the Law "On Assemblies and Manifestations". If adopted, it will empower the police with more freedom at dispersal of oppositional rallies and actions; while it will become much harder to get permits for holding such events.

Today, residents of Kalmykia celebrate a birthday, enlightenment and departure to nirvana of Shakyamuni Buddha. From early morning the central Khurul of the republic "Golden Abode of Buddha Shakyamuni" is holding celebrations, prayers and taking oaths of Makhayana.

After the murder in the city of Baksan of Khasan Bogatyryov, Deputy Head of the Russian Centre for Combating Extremism at the local Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), mass detentions of local residents took place there. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by lawyers Magomed Abubakarov and Rustam Matsev.

Sergey Arakcheev, a former MIA officer, who was convicted in 2007 to 15 years of imprisonment for murdering Chechen residents, has recorded a video appeal to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, where he states his innocence, and asks the Premier to get into the circumstances of his case.

On June 14, lawyer Abusupyan Gaitaev filed a brief cassation complaint against the decision of the Taganka District Court, which had sentenced the blogger Alexei Dudko to six years of colony imprisonment. Mr Gaitaev himself told about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

At the ceremony to be held on June 15 in Oslo, Norway, the Dagestani weekly "Chernovik" (Draft) will be awarded the "Free Press of Eastern Europe" Prize named after Gerd Bucerius.

Dmitry Ostrovenko, a deputy of the City Duma of Rostov-on-Don, accused of killing a student Igor Verbenko in a road accident, was expelled from the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party on the following day, said Victor Deryabkin, the secretary of the regional political council of the party.

Today, the initiative group, advocating for a referendum to decide on extension of the term in office of the incumbent South-Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity, held an action in Tskhinvali in front of the building of the Supreme Court, which was to make its decision on the referendum.

The top managers of the Football Club (FC) "Terek" from Grozny FC Terek believe that head coach Ruud Gullit failed to cope with his duties.

The village of Gimry, Untsukul District of Dagestan, hosted a rally, which was attended, according to organizers, by about five thousand people. The participants adopted a resolution demanding to open the tunnel, which connects nine mountainous districts of the republic with its lowland part.

Today, the Khamovniki Court of Moscow has announced the verdict on the nine-month-long litigation, in which Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", was accused of slandering the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Audit Service of the Revenue Department of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) of Georgia has started the second phase of the audit at the editorial board of the Media Holding "Palette". Earlier, the employees of the Service conducted an inventory, and are now start a financial inspection of the six enterprises, which form the Holding. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Diana Drapaidze, an editor of the Holding's information division.

The head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov held a meeting in the city of Magas with relatives of the young people, who, according to law enforcement bodies, had left their home to join illegal armed formations (IAFs). Evkurov urged parents to persuade their children to leave "the forest".

Private households and other structures are demolished in Khankalskaya Street in Grozny. The authorities explain this by the need to expand the roadway and make exit from central Grozny as comfortable as possible. Residents of the street are indignant that their opinion was not taken into account.

Today, the city held a mourning rally and memorial church services in commemoration of the 16th anniversary of the attack on the city of a group of militants under command of Shamil Basaev.

On June 13, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of Azerbaijan, whose offices are located in central Baku, in No. 68 Shamsi Badalbeili Street, were pressed by the police, as reported by Leila Yunus, head of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD).

Negotiations in Transcaucasia on Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia's conflicts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia; resonant murder of religious leaders in Makhachkala, Dagestani capital; and assassination in broad daylight in Moscow of Yuri Budanov, "an enemy of the Chechen nation", – look these and other events in the review of the week of June 6-12, 2011, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

In the city of Khimki near Moscow the funeral took place of the former colonel Yuri Budanov, who was shot dead in Moscow on June 10. The ceremony passed without incident.

Today, the Bureau of the Georgian Parliament has initiated the bill on neutral passports for residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The most effective solution to the problem of new jobs in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) is to implement 70 selected investment projects, said Sergey Vereschagin, Deputy Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation at the first sitting of the working group on employment and labour migration in the NCFD, convoked in the city of Yessentuki.