News

On May 4-5, a mission of observers of the Congress of the Council of Europe (CE) will come to Yerevan for observing local and territorial elections. The mission members will meet state officials and representatives of political forces who plan to take part in the elections of the Board of Elders of the Yerevan City Mayoralty.

In honour of the Easter, President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili has pardoned 390 prisoners, including 23 women and 6 minors.

Seiran Shakhsuvaryan, press secretary of Minister of Defence of Armenia, has announced today that Armenia will take part in the NATO's military exercises "Cooperative Longbow 2009" planned in the territory of Georgia from May 6 to June 1, 2009.

Rasul Kudaev and Azret Shavaev, defendants in the case dealing with events in Nalchik on October 13, 2005, and their advocates Magomed Abubakarov and Tatiana Psomiadi have addressed their complaint to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on violation of the defendants' constitutional rights.

The Prosecutor's Office does not put any obstacles in the course of inquiry into the murder case of Magomed Evloev, owner of the oppositional website "Ingushetia.Ru". This was stated by President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov.

Student Parviz Azimov was dismissed from the Lenkoran State University situated in the south of Azerbaijan. The student is confident that the reason of his dismissal was his article "Corruption Scandal in Lenkoran University".

In Chechnya, families of the inmates convicted for grave crimes under articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation have addressed the so-called UFSIN (Russian corrective administration) with a request to transfer their relatives for serving their punishments closer to their homes - to have opportunities to visit them.

President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh plans to run for his second term at the presidential election to be held in Abkhazia this December.

In Azerbaijan, independent advocates are prosecuted, and it is done by judges instead of defending citizens' rights. This was stated on April 16 by Leila Yunus, Director of Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), at the roundtable "State of courts in Azerbaijan and lawlessness in the judiciary".

Under investigation of the case about a series of explosions in Sochi, several Arabs-students of the Sochi Branch of the Russian People's Friendship University were detained as suspects of making the explosive.

Law-enforcement bodies of North Ossetia are trying to capture an armed criminal who murdered a woman. The crime was committed on April 16 in the evening in secondary school No. 26 located in the Kosta Avenue of Vladikavkaz.

In the high-mountainous Shatoy District of Chechnya, a combat collision burst out between Russian militaries and a group of militants. There is no data about any casualties or victims. The skirmish happened right at the time, when Grozny hosted a rally-concert dedicated to cancellation of the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime in the republic.

Today, at about 11 a.m., an explosion took place in one of the cafes in central Nazran. The building was essentially damaged: windows were broken and walls damaged. None of the visitors or personnel suffered.

The Chief Investigatory Department of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation has accused Elimpasha Khatsuev of complicity in murdering Ruslan Yamadaev and attempting to murder Sergey Kizyun, accomplished on September 24, 2008, in Moscow, as the press service of the ICPO reports.

On April 15, it was announced that "self-defence groups" of the Georgian opposition would soon start patrolling; however, Emil Adelkhanov, deputy chairman of the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, said that the groups are still inoperative.

On April 16, at the session of the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria trying the case about attack on Nalchik, Olga Chibinyova, head of the group of state prosecution, continued disclosing the indictment and passed over to episode-by-episode description of the events on October 13, 2005.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that on April 17 at a press conference held in the Institute of Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) poet-satirist Mirza Sakit (Sakit Zakhidov), journalist of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) newspaper, stated that the situation in prisons of Azerbaijan is horrifying: prisoners are humiliated and exposed to torture; bribe-taking flourishes.

In the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), two residents of Karachaevo-Circassia and a resident of Adygea, detained on March 19 in the city of Tyrnyauz, have lodged complaints to human rights organizations saying they were exposed to illegal inquiry methods.

On April 15, at the monument to victims to political repressions, located between the cities of Nazran and Magas in Ingushetia, a protest action was conducted by relatives of the young people, kidnapped during the last week in the Malgobek District.

Azerbaijan pursues the policy of forced Shiitization of Moslems-Sunnites, indigenous Dagestanians, who inhabit their lands. This was stated by Magomed Ismailov, a resident of the Belokan District of Azerbaijan, who studies in one of Makhachkala higher schools.