News

Ms Dobrieva, a relative of assassinated oppositionist Maksharip Aushev, has addressed human rights activists for help in searching her brothers and nephews, who disappeared in St Petersburg. She has filed respective applications to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Nazran (Ingushetia) and Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Mashr".

Ivona Kalishewska, an employee of the Polish edition "Kaukaz.net", asserts that the recent attempt of refugees from Georgia and Chechnya, accommodated in Polish refugee centres, to cross the German border had nothing to do with their "hard residence conditions" in Poland.

The law enforcement bodies of St Petersburg know nothing about disappearance in their city of relatives of the human rights activist from Ingushetia Maksharip Aushev, who was shot dead in October. The missing persons are Ali Dzhaniev, a brother of Maksharip's widow, and her uncle - Yusup and Yunus Dobriev. The latter was well-known among St Petersburg Moslems for his humanitarian activity.

One of extremist websites has placed photos of cut-off heads of Murat Dokushukin and Albert Shebzukhov, assassinated in November in Kabardino-Balkaria. Militants say that the casualties were snooping members of the armed underground.

Eduard Sharmazanov, press secretary of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia has condemned the October 27 attack on young opposition activists, treating as unacceptable any attempt of human rights violation. Oppositionists, in the turn, accuse the authorities.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has signed a number of laws changing the territorial jurisdiction of terrorists and allowing consideration of "terrorist" cases by juries.

Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia - the widow of the first president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia - complains of pressure on her family and asks political asylum in Germany. This is the way she tries to help to release her son Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, who is kept in pre-trial custody on charges of a murder attempt and illegal firearm storage.

The investigatory bodies of the Krasnodar Territory accuse Alexei Dymovskiy, former employee of the Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department), under the article "swindle through abuse of service position."

Rizvan Isaev, Deputy of the Russian State Duma from Dagestan, has categorically refuted the information that he had signed an appeal of a group of MPs from Dagestan to Yuri Chaika, General Public Prosecutor, asking to take measures against "armed groups commanded by state officials." Mr Isaev treated the incident as "provocation".

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Russian Federation has accused Georgia of unwillingness to address issues of direct Moscow-Tbilisi flights.

Today, the republic marks the Memory Day on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of deportation of Kalmyks accused of treason. They were not just exiled, but spread over the vast Siberia - from the very north to the Far East and Kazakhstan. Almost half of all deported Kalmyks died in exile. Practically every family has whom to commemorate: their relatives perished either on the way or in exile - far from homeland.

Ella Kesaeva, head of the All-Russia Public Organization "Voice of Beslan", moved a proposal at the reporting-election Congress of Human Rights Defenders in Moscow to address the Council of Federation and State Duma with a request to pass a law on the status of terror act victims. The Congress unanimously upheld the offer.

Supply of electric power to refugees from South Ossetia, living in Skra village, Gori District (Eastern Georgia), will be resumed only after they pay their debts to the "Telasi" electricity distribution company. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it at the press service of the company.

Enver Mamedov, head of the division for supervising investigation of crimes of the Prosecutor's Office of Dagestan, has instructed the public prosecutor of Khasavyurt to receive Mamatkhan Baisultanov, who had complained that the investigation of the execution of his son and pregnant daughter-in-law, committed in 2006, is protracted.

Today, in the Dagestan village of Kakashura, Karabudakhken District, a crowd of about 500 persons strong has set the household of Boris Nasrutdinov, son of the owner of the local poultry farm, on fire. Yesterday, on December 25, a conflict with the use of firearms burst out because of Boris.

On December 25 at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time, three thousand residents of the Imereti Bay and "Rossiya" State Farm, Adler District of Sochi, where Olympic objects are built, are again without electricity.

Mansur Musaev, a former resident of Grozny, has informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the work is now underway in Germany on a documentary book, describing in details the practice of arrests and torture of detainees in Chechnya.

Any act of pardon or amnesty should be welcomed from the viewpoint of humanism; however, the today's President's pardon has not solved the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. This was stated by Emin Guseinov, Director of the Institute of Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), in his comments on the order of the head of Azerbaijan.

Many people who come to Poland from Caucasian republics have no grounds to claim for the status of refugees, as Ivona Kalishewska, an employee of the Polish edition "Kaukaz.net" believes.

The war on corruption in Ingushetia is a failure because of "dishonesty and indecency" of certain judges, President Yunus-Bek Evkurov has stated. At the same time, Vladimir Ustinov, Plenipotentiary of Russian President in the Southern Federal District (SFD), praises the efforts of the President of Ingushetia who "actively works with the population" and treats him as a positive example of how to act in order to make the "state power work for the society."