News

Reforms in the spheres of human rights and democracy are crucial for Armenia; and the country has its active civil society, ready to address these fundamental issues, says Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, in her letter to Armenian human rights defenders.

The foreigners who visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia without permit of Georgian authorities will be exposed to criminal liability, once they appear in the territory of Georgia. This was stated today by Shota Utiashvili, official spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia. Today, it became known that citizens of Russia and Armenia are already behind bars in Georgia for illegal border crossing.

Employees of the Centre for Spiritual and Moral Education and Development of Chechnya and activists of the Patriotic Club "Ramzan" have held an action in the Chechen capital under the motto "Woman in Islam", by telling girls and women in the streets of Grozny how they should dress and behave according to norms of Islam. Local residents express ambiguous attitude to the action.

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and the "Civil Assistance" Committee are organizing a free-of-charge hospitalization of Makhmud Ahmedov, 14, who partially lost hearing after beating by militiamen in Dagestan, and his mother Aishat Guseinova in Moscow clinics. The "Civil Assistance" Committee has opened an account for donations aimed to treat the child.

The resident of the Grozny District of Chechnya, a relative of the owner of the house, where militant Khamzat Shemilev was killed on August 21, was kidnapped by power agents and kept in custody for about 24 hours. They demanded him "to confess" that he was Shemilev's helper; otherwise they threatened to kill him and announce that he was a terrorist-suicide bomber. This was reported by the head of one of local human rights NGOs.

In Batayurt village in Dagestan a car was shelled, and a militia master sergeant was wounded.

On August 25, President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, together with Deputy of the Russian State Duma Adam Delimkhanov, visited the commemoration ceremony in the Yamadaevs house in Gudermes. As local observers believe, Kadyrov's and Delimkhanov's presence at the mourning ceremony in the house of the Yamadaev clan indicates the final reconciliation of the parties in conflict.

The federal centre should put an end to the campaign unleashed in Chechnya, where women are forced to observe Islamic instructions of clothes. This was the topic of the statement of the international Human Rights Watch (HRW), which arrived to the office of the "Caucasian Knot".

Rashid Aliev, an Azerbaijani scientist-physicist, recently released from custody in Iran, has declared at a press conference on August 25 that when he was in the prison of the Iranian special service ETTELAT, he permanently felt the support organized in Azerbaijan in his defence.

Three days before their kidnapping in Dagestan, Abubakar Rizvanov and Timur (Suleiman) Kurbanmagomedov, employees of the Media Centre "Khuda-Media", noticed that they were shadowed; the young men managed to make a video of the cars, which - as they thought - were pursuing them.

Three boys aged 9, 10 and 12 years suffered from an explosion that happened in a children's playground in the city of Belaya Kalitva, Rostov Region. The children received the necessary medical aid. Now militiamen try to understand what exactly was blown up by the children. This was reported by the press service of the GUVD (Chief Interior Department) for the Rostov Region.

The number of victims of the West Nile Encephalitis (WNE) in Russia has reached six: five persons died in Volgograd and one in the Rostov Region, said Gennady Onischenko, Chief State Sanitary Inspector of Russia.

In the city of Batumi, Georgia, an action of opponents of the gay parade is held. The organizers of the protest action are the parishioners of the St Barbara Church, who call the local authorities to take into account the statement of the Patriarchy of Georgia and not to admit the gay parade in an Orthodox country. The city mayoralty says that they know nothing about the organizers, place and time of the gay parade.

Today, the Baku Appeal Court, chaired by Mirashi Guseinov, has started a preparatory session on consideration of the appeal complaint lodged by journalist Einullah Fatullaev. The judge provided the journalist's advocates with the time till September 2 for getting acquainted with the protocols.

The unidentified persons, who attacked tourists in Kabardino-Balkaria on August 9 and 19, were looking for militiamen, said an informed source from local investigatory bodies and added that both crimes had been committed by one and the same grouping.

Currently, in the Imereti Lowland of Sochi, in the place, where the stadium for the opening ceremony of the Olympiad-2014 will be built, private households are being demolished.

Since 1998, the volume of the US financial help to Nagorno-Karabakh has made 36 million dollars, that is, by 25 million dollars less than it was pre-planned by the Congress. This was announced on August 24 by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

On August 25, two oppositional parties of Azerbaijan – "Umid" (Hope) and the Democratic Party – declared creation of electoral block named "Karabakh" with the aim to jointly run for the parliamentary elections, forthcoming on November 7.

Catherine Ashton, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union (EU), made a statement, criticizing the decision of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan of August 19, which upheld the verdict to bloggers Adnan Gadjizade and Emin Milli.

Recently, four young women from the Sunzha District of Chechnya left their homes and joined the ranks of the armed underground.