News

Youth activists who plan to hold a protest action on May 10 against the Flower Holiday traditionally held on this date in Baku are detained. The protesters find the holiday inappropriate in the context of the grief for the victims of the April 30 massacre at the Azerbaijani State Oil Academy.

Colonel Ovanes Tamanyan, Chief of the Criminal Search Department of the Police of the Republic of Armenia, has assured journalists that facts of violence against their colleagues are in the focus of attention of law enforcers. According to his story, this issue is one of the police's priorities.

On May 7, the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of Russia was addressed by parents of students from the Vladimir Polytechnic Institute, who had left for Abkhazia to make kayak rafting, but failed to leave the place back on due date.

On May 8, employees of Georgian MIA detained a group of 27 physicians and employees of gynaecologic clinics, who are accused of trafficking in newborns.

On May 8, the Parliament of Azerbaijan passed amendments to the law "On Freedom of Religion", which stipulated stronger control over the religion sphere. The amendments assume re-registration of all religion communities and specify the mechanisms of their registration cancellation.

The Israeli Knesseth (Parliament) has rejected an official application on recognition of Armenians' genocide, submitted by the leader of the Left-Wing Party "Merez" Haim Oron, who suggested setting up a Knesseth group for discussing this issue.

Georgian political scientist Paata Zakareishvili believes that negotiations of the leaders of the opposition with David Bakradze, Speaker of the Parliament, are senseless, as in Georgia nothing depends on this person.

Law enforcement bodies of Ingushetia are looking for criminals, who murdered, at night on May 8, a local resident in one of pre-border villages of Sunzha District.

Gurgen Sarkisyan, Transport Minister, told journalists that the transport system of Armenia is ready to opening of the Armenian-Turkish border.

The City Court of Tbilisi has sentenced political scientist Vakhtang Maisaya, who was accused of espionage and arrested on May 5 by counter-intelligence agents, to two months of pre-trial detention.

In the city of Stavropol, unidentified persons covered walls of buildings with fascist swastikas and inscriptions. Linguistic examination has revealed that inscriptions contained extremist appeals.

Authorities in Rostov-on-Don must launch a criminal investigation into a possible attack on the editor-in-chief of an independent newspaper, who was found unconscious with a head wound in the early morning of April 30, as stated by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

On May 12, the Volgograd Regional Court will have a cassation session on the case of Zubair Zubairaev, a convicted native of Chechnya, who is now serving his term in Colony LIU-15 (medical-corrective establishment) in Volgograd region.

With account of numerous complaints of the witnesses who figure in the former "Case of Seven" on application of torture and violence to them with the aim "to obtain evidences wanted by the investigation," Armen Arutyunyan, Ombudsman in Armenia, has made a decision to add personnel to his office with the aim to monitor the trials.

Under the war on corruption announced the new head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov practically immediately after he took the office, investigation into two most resonant criminal cases is over. Former top managers of large Republic's enterprises are accused of plundering budgetary funds.

The convicted resident of Dagestan Sultan Umashev is tortured in a colony of the Kirov Region and forced to confess of committing terror acts under orders of Zakaev and Berezovskiy; this was reported by a former prisoner, who served his term in this colony up to the end of 2008.

The congress of forced migrants from Chechnya living in Ingushetia to be held in Nazran on June 1 was cancelled. On May 7, this decision was announced by Aslambek Apaev, one of the organizers, expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group for Northern Caucasus and Chairman of the Committee in Defence of Forced Migrants' Rights.

The indictment against three operative agents of the Leninskiy RUVD (District Interior Department) of the city of Saratov, accused of murdering Armen Gasparyan, a citizen of Armenia, in October 2008, has been approved.

President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov has taken the investigation into the fire-fight that resulted in loss of his security and a civilian under his personal control. On April 29, Mr Evkurov was present at the casualties' funerals.

As a result of clashes in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in the evening on May 6, main traumas in the victims were caused by shots of special pistols and guns using traumatic bullets. This was stated by Soso Panuashvili, representative of the organization named "Human Rights" in Tbilisi.