News

The attack on the building of the Chechen Parliament in Grozny on October 19 and the militants' attack committed in the end of August this year on Tsentoroi - the family village of the Chechen President - indicate serious changes in tactics and strategy of the Chechen underground, some local experts believe. In their opinion, activation of the underground may lead to a new outbreak of violence in the country.

The forthcoming elections to the National Assembly of Azerbaijan are prepared in the environment characterized by lack of dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition, runs the primary report released today by the Observation Mission of the Office for Democratic Institutes and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the status of the pre-election situation in Azerbaijan.

Moscow hosts a scientific-practical conference "European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR): Outcomes and Prospects". Among other issues, lawyers, human rights and NGO activists raised the issue of protecting natives of the Caucasus in Moscow and other Russian cities, where they get into the most vulnerable group of population.

Yuri Petrosyan, a resident of the city of Yaroslavl, asks Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to help in fair investigation of the incident, in which he and his son-in-law, a Chechen by nationality, received gunshot wounds.

In the city of Tyrnyauz, where a special operation to search militants is conducted, four local residents were found in one of the mines: they were gathering scrap metal there.

As reported by the head of the investigatory division for the city of Tuapse, Krasnodar Territory, his employees found the body of 16th casualty of the flood.

In the evening on October 20, on their way back home from the Republic of Dagestan, two residents of Ingushetia - Khutiev, Mohamed Aslanbekovich, and Khashagulgov, Aslan Yakhyaevich (a nephew of Issa Khashagulgov, earlier arrested on suspicion of committing the terror act in Vladikavkaz). According to relatives of the missing persons, Mohamed and Aslan are employees of the Ministry of Construction of Ingushetia.

On October 18, three residents of Elborus, workers of the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) "Ropeways of Elborus" Asker Tavkeshev, Mohamed Alchagirov and Anatoly Mammeev left their homes in Kabardino-Balkaria and disappeared.

Twelve men who danced lezginka in the streets and verbally abused passers-by, received ten days in jail for breaking public order, said Victoria Baigulova, head of the press service of the Stavropol administration.

Today, at the trial on the events of October 13, 2005, in Nalchik, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), defendant Azamat Akhkubekov filed a motion to summon Khachim Shogenov, former Minister of Internal Affairs, as a witness.

Roman Tolstikov, ex-chief of investigation unit of Department of Interior Affairs was detained in Stavropol for suspicion of an attempt of taking a bribe of one million rubles.

Five people injured during the act of terror in the capital of North Osetia on September, 9, are still staying in Moscow hospitals. This news came from the Permanent Mission of the republic under the President of the Russian Federation.

From the start of 2010, the Northern Caucasus saw 10 attacks committed by 12 suicide bombers, in which 49 persons were lost, apart from the bombers, and 308 persons more suffered. Two more such terror acts, according to law enforcers, were prevented.

In the course of a special operation conducted in the wooded area in the Kizilyurt District of Dagestan, two suspected militants were liquidated, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC) reports.

The city of Tyrnyauz of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) is under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime.

The roundtable held on October 19 considered the idea of the law on the rights and duties of adolescents. It is planned that an entire chapter in it will be on parents and inadmissibility of breaking children's rights.

Businessman Marat Ramazanov, a former deputy of the National Assembly of Dagestan, was murdered tonight in Makhachkala, said the press service of the local MIA.

The resort city of Sochi has closed the Fifth International Festival "Cinema without Barriers", dedicated to life of people with disabilities. The jury marked a total of 13 films in different categories. Prizes were granted to filmmakers from Germany, USA, Sweden, Great Britain, France and Russia.

Krasnodar Territory occurred in power of "high water" - there are casualties and victims; the calamity caused multimillion losses; electoral battles in southern Russia continue after voting; Georgia accepts residents of Northern Caucasus in visa-free mode, while Russia withdraws its troops from the Ossetian-Georgian border, - look these and other events in the review of the week of October 11-17, 2010, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Human rights activists from Armenia sent a letter to Torbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CE), whose visit to Armenia will take place in the coming days. In the letter members of several public organizations draw Mr Jagland's attention to systematic human rights violations in their country.