News

On December 26, in Batumi, journalists of the oppositional channel TV-25 will present documents to the Ombudsman of Georgia Georgiy Tugushi, on the basis of which they will try to write off their debt, which threatens to stop the channel. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Merab Merkviladze, owner and director of the TV company.

Today, in Srednie Achaluki village, Malgobek District of Ingushetia, power agents have conducted a non-sanctioned search. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Leila Tochieva, the owner of the searched house.

One of the candidates to the post of Mayor of the city of Derbent, former public prosecutor of Dagestan and now the head of the Suleiman-Stalskiy District Imam Yaraliev has expressed his satisfaction with the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan (RD), according to which the outcomes of the election in Derbent were nullified.

Today, the Institute of Media Rights (IMR) has presented its 2009 report on the situation with the freedom of expression in Azerbaijan, which notes that the situation with the freedom of speech in the country "remains poor, and Azerbaijan is behind many countries by this indicator," as Leila Madatli, the IMR's spokesperson, said at the presentation of the report in the Baku Media Centre.

Armen Arutyunyan, Ombudsman of Armenia has presented his extraordinary public report "Ensuring Fair Litigation in the Republic of Armenia", where the abnormal operation of the judiciary was treated as a "systemic problem."

As reported by Minister Aram Arutyunyan, the checks conducted by his Ministry of Nature Protection this year have revealed over 700 violations in the spheres of fauna and flora protection, protection and use of water bodies and illegal felling. As a result of the checks, the Ministry has returned 118.4 million drams back to the state budget.

Today in Moscow, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Abkhazia Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Shamba have signed the intergovernmental agreement which "creates the legal basis for functioning of diplomatic representative offices of the two countries."

The decision of the Supreme Court of Dagestan to cancel the outcomes of the elections in the city of Derbent is lawful and justified. The experts who stick to this opinion say that the courts have perceived President Medvedev's signal.

The municipal elections on December 23 in Azerbaijan were accompanied by rough violations of the law and, consequently, cannot be regarded as free, democratic and fair. This is asserted in the primary statement of the Centre for Monitoring Elections and Training in Democracy (CMETD) adopted on the monitoring results of the election campaign.

In the near future, should the Armenian-Turkish border get opened, Armenia will be able to export electric power to Turkey. Armenia is interested in this export to the neighbour, where the energy deficit is high. This was stated by Armen Movsisyan, Minister for Power and Natural Resources of Armenia.

On December 18-19, the project "Peace to the Caucasus", which assumes meetings, discussions and roundtables in the republics of Northern Caucasus, visited Ingushetia.

The refugees from South Ossetia, who were temporarily accommodated in Skra village (8 km off the city of Gori), held a protest action by blocking a railway section not far from Gori. According to Georgian media, they demand restoration of electricity supply to their houses.

Russian human rights defenders Ernst Chorny and Sergey Kovalyov came to Tbilisi to meet President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili. According to Mr Kovalyov, earlier they sent a letter to Mikhail Saakashvili asking him to release human rights activist Academician Vladimir Vakhaniya.

The current legislation assumes a mechanism of early relief of prisoners in case of a heavy disease, which prevents any further stay in prison. Lawyer Gayane Khachatryan told about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent in her comment on the chances to get amnestied because of state of health for the Armenian political prisoner Sasun Mikaelyan.

Today, Khaibula Khaibulaev, a resident of Karata village, Akhvakh District, has sent a letter to Yuri Chaika, General Public Prosecutor of Russia, asking him to attract Labazan Derbishev, head of criminal search of the Botlikh District, who severely beat Khaibulaev on August 16, 2009.

In 2009, the number of crimes, which can be regarded as terror acts, committed in the south of Russia, went up by almost one third as compared with 2008; thus, during 11 months of this year, 786 such crimes were committed. This was stated on December 22 by Vladimir Ustinov, Plenipotentiary of Russian President for the South federal District (SFD).

In Tbilisi, Khatuna Charaeva, a resident of the Leningor District of South Ossetia, was detained with 30,000 counterfeit US dollars on her. Boris Chochiev, Plenipotentiary of President of South Ossetia on post-conflict settlement, said that "the Georgian authorities have started applying a new method of creating intolerable life conditions for the population of the area."

In the evening on December 23, Azerbaijan finalized its municipal elections. They were attended by 1,462,070 voters, or 31.86 percent of the voters' list. As reported by Ramin Guseinov, head of the centre named "Elections", the outcomes are still unknown.

The Kabardino-Balkarian human rights centre was approached by Lydia Zhangurazova, a resident of Verkhniaya Zhemtala village, Cherek District, Kabardino-Balkaria, who said that her son Islam Zhangurazov, 23, went for his evening pray to the mosque on Sunday, December 20, but never reached the mosque.

Official outcomes of presidential election in Abkhazia; recognition of this republic and South Ossetia by the Republic of Nauru; violations of the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan; skirmishes in the contact line with Karabakh; terror acts in the south of Russia and return of the HRC "Memorial" to Chechnya, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of December 14-20 in Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".