News

In Armenia, on July 30, another oppositionist left the underground and surrendered to law enforcement bodies. Gamlet Ovannisyan, a member of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), who was in search since last March, is going to prove that statements of the authorities on amnesty are deceptive.

Today, at the extraordinary session of the Parliament of Georgia, the deputies have elected Georgiy Tugushi, 32, to be Georgia's new 'national defender' (Ombudsman); he is also a member of the Committee of the European Union against Violence and has worked for five years in the Ombudsman's office. 88 MPs voted for him, and 8 - against.

Professor Nikolai Kulikov, Doctor of Engineering in speciality "Water Supply and Sewage", author of more than 200 patents on inventions in water usage and a member of the Social-Ecological Board under Sochi Mayor, has stated that water in Sochi is full of dirt, although the local water supply and sewage service is advertising its European level.

The experts and journalists, who took part in the roundtable on the start of warfare in South Ossetia one year ago, spoke not only about the situation in the Caucasus a year after, but also about the modern geopolitical situation.

The incident on July 30, when Chechen militiamen opened occasional fire on the car with their Russian colleagues, having killed two of them, is treated in Chechnya as a "tragic accident", referring to external similarity of one of the casualties with a Wahhabite ideologist.

Despite the transfer of Novruzali Mamedov, head of the Talysh Cultural Centre and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado" (Voice of Talysh), to the hospital of the Penitentiary Service of the Ministry of Justice, he is still deprived of duly qualified medical aid. This is the topic of the statement of the Committee in Defence of Novruzali Mamedov's Rights that has arrived to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent; last summer Mamedov was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for treason.

Isakhan Ashurov and Elton Guliev, advocates of arrested youth activists and bloggers Adnan Gadjizade and Emin Milli, accused of hooliganism, have laid an action to the Sabail District Court of Baku against the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the State Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan. In the opinion of the advocates, these bodies have broken the presumption of innocence principle.

In the afternoon on July 29, the Independent Press Centre hosted a press conference "Searches, interrogations, provocations, charges of tax crimes and terrorism against human rights defenders in Kazan", related to persecution by law enforcers of the Kazan Human Rights Centre and the inter-regional human rights association named "Agora".

The absence of any trustworthy information about the details of the attempt on Isa Yamadaev, committed in the evening on July 28 in Moscow, gives rise to various versions of the incident. Isa's relatives are sure that the attempt was initiated by the authorities of Chechnya, while the republic's law enforcers believe that it was staged. There is also an opinion that the attempt was a part of scenario aimed to discredit the republic's leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

In reply to this night's information from South Ossetia about bombardment of Tskhinvali, the Georgian party has reported that Ossetians have shelled the Georgian MIA's post in the village of Zemo Nikozy.

Grant Melkumyan, leader of the Communist Party of Nagorno-Karabakh, finds it illogical that in debates on Karabakh settlement they talk about Azerbaijani refugees, while there are more than half-million refugees-Armenians from Azerbaijan. In his opinion, it is also necessary to raise the issue about a similar return of Armenian refugees to Azerbaijan and Shaumyan and Martuni Districts of Karabakh.

Today, while meeting members of youth organizations of Chechnya, President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov made responsible Sheikh Said Buryatskiy, one of ideologists of Caucasian rebels, for the terror act committed on July 26 in central Grozny.

Salman Archkhoev, Chief Accountant of the Department for Housing and Utilities (DHU) in Sunzha District of Ingushetia, accused of embezzlement of over 90 million roubles from the state budget was sentenced to six years of conditional imprisonment and a fine at a rate of 50,000 roubles.

Makhmud Sakalov, Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Ingushetia, has reported at the sitting of the national parliament that President Yunus-Bek Evkurov, wounded as a result of a terror act, is now much better; Mr Evkurov is 46 today.

As a result of an attack on the militia unit in the Kizilyurt District of Dagestan, three militiamen were wounded.

Today the Supreme Court of Ingushetia has acquitted the figurants in the case of mass disorders last January.

Ahmed Zakaev, former emissary of Chechen separatists, has no doubts that the order to stop operations against Chechen militia by the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) that was recently adopted will be also executed by Doku Umarov's supporters. Mr Zakaev himself told this to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Minsk is still studying "the complex issue of the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia." This was stated on July 28 by Sergey Martynov, Foreign Minister of Belarus, at a press conference on results of his meeting with the EU's ministerial "troika".

Christophe Strasser, Rapporteur of the PACE on Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan, is concerned with the arrest "under contradictory circumstances" of two activists of civil society - Emin Milli and Adnan Gadjizade, while deputies of the European Parliament have expressed their concern in a corresponding address to Azerbaijani ambassador in Belgium, Luxembourg and European Union.

In a combat skirmish that burst out on July 28 in the Urus-Martan District of the Chechen Republic four supposed members of armed underground groupings were killed. There are no losses among power agents.