News

Three officers of the republican law enforcement bodies got wounded on May, 1, at about 17:30, during operational search actions in the mountainous and wooded area near the settlement of Eshelkhatoy, Vedeno district.

Azerbaijani Institute of Freedom and Safety of Reporters (IFSR) wrote a letter to President of the USA Barack Obama asking him to mention the name of convicted journalist Einullah Fatullaev in the speech of Head of the USA devoted to World Press Day.

On April 29, Chairman (Speaker) of the National Assembly of Armenia Ovik Abramyan addressed President Serzh Sargsyan asking him to pardon Sasun Mikaelyan, an opposition activist and a veteran of the Karabakh War.

Activists of the movement "Accessible preschool education for Russian children" held a picket in Volgograd demanding to solve the problem of shortage of kindergarten places. The action took place within the nationwide day of protest.

In the evening on April 29, Ruslan Dolov, a resident of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), suspected of involvement in IAFs (illegal armed formations), triggered a grenade in his car, when power agents tried to detain him.

Today, activists of oppositional political parties and youth organizations of Azerbaijan have managed, despite the obstacles erected by the police, to hold in Baku an action in memory of the casualties of the mass murder committed at the Azerbaijani State Oil Academy (ASOA).

Today, the township of Lazarevskoye in Sochi hosted the seventh congress of the public organization "Adyge-Khasse" of the Black Sea Adygs-Shapsugs. More than 180 delegates listened to the report of the chairman of the Organization Madzhid Chachukh.

The journalist's defence stated violations in the course of his trial, which resulted in a sentence to 180 hours of corrective work under the charge of beating the local Deputy Rifkat Shabanov; therefore, hi advocates intend to appeal against the verdict.

As reported by the local MIA, in the village of Costa-Khetagurov, Karachay-Cherkessia, unidentified persons set fire to the church and destroyed the stela of St George Victorious.

On April 29, the Georgian journalist Levan Gudadze, who had first fled to South Ossetia and then to Russia, went on hunger strike at the Swiss Embassy in Moscow with a demand to send him back to Georgia. He explains his action by absence of safety guarantees for him and his family.

In the house of Gyulnaz Nasirova, a resident of Lyankaran, 19 books of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses were found and confiscated.

The Tbilisi City Council has decided to allocate special parking places for drivers with disabilities. The places will be used only by them.

Wolves are attacking people in rural areas. Such reports come from different parts of the country.

The third round of talks between the delegations of Georgia and Russia on Russian Federation's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is scheduled on late May. The agreement was reached after the second round of talks held on April 28-29 in Geneva.

The Islamic scholar Kurman Ismajlov, in whose power agents had earlier found an object looking like a piece of explosive, had earlier been abducted; kidnappers took him to the forest and demanded by threats that he left the region named Kavkazskie Mineralnye Vody (KMV - Caucasian Mineral Waters). This was reported by human rights activist Rikhard Panteleichuk.

In Azerbaijan on April 28, at its next session, the Nizami District Court of the city of Gandzha, which is considering the case of the young activist Bakhtiyar Gadjiev, accused of evasion from military service, listened to witnesses' evidences. However, at the beginning it was announced that the defence's challenge of the composition of the court chaired by Akhundov was rejected. The next court session was scheduled on May 5.

In the Stavropol Region, Sheikh Kurman Ismajlov was not detained and nor abducted; he was at the local Prosecutor's Office - writing a complaint against actions of power agents. This was announced by his advocate Rasul Kubanov.

Today, the Shamil District Court held the first session on the case of beating by militiamen in July 2010 of a 14-year-old boy in the premises of the Shamil ROVD (District Interior Division). The employees of the MIA Magomed Magomedov, Gamzat Nurudinov and Shamil Magomedov are facing the trial. The litigation will continue on May 3.

The party of the defendants - Nikita Tikhonov and Eugenia Khasis - believes that the guilty verdict passed by the jury is illegal because of the violations admitted in the course of the trial on the murder case of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Russian Federation has sent a protest to Georgia - through mediation of Swiss diplomats - against searches at the airport of Tbilisi of a woman-citizen of Russia, a close relative of Nino Burdjanadze, ex-speaker of the Georgian parliament.