News

Petros Makeyan, Chairman of the Democratic Homeland Party, who is kept in the Penitentiary Establishment "Nubarashen" and who declared a termless hunger strike on April 2, on April 9 refused to drink water.

A roundtable "April 9: Lessons of the Past", dedicated to the events 19 years ago, was held at the Tbilisi International Press Centre of the RIA "Novosti".

In April 1995, regiments of federal armed forces made a punitive "zachistka" (clean-up) in the village of Samashki, Achkhoy-Martan District of Chechnya, which turned into massacre of unarmed people, robberies and marauding.

The Christian Old Ritualists who are evicted now from the Imereti Valley in Sochi want to be redeemed by the authorities for the land alienated from them for erection of Olympic objects at the rate of at least $200,000 for a hundredth of hectare.

The celebratory concert organized in the evening on April 9 in the Republic Square of Yerevan in honour of inauguration of Serzh Sarkisyan, newly elected President of Armenia, from time to time was accompanied by chants performed of isolated groups of people: "Serzhik, go away!", "Levon is President!"

The wives, sisters and mothers of the arrested activists of the opposition of Armenia have addressed the authorities with a demand to release political prisoners and stop prosecutions of their family members.

In connection with the inauguration of Serzh Sarkisyan, in the evening on April 8, more than five thousand Armenians went out to the protest action in the vicinity of Los Angeles called "Minor Armenia" with a demand not to recognize Sarkisyan president-elect of Armenia.

Today, the Arbitration Court of Dagestan has considered the suit of the Ministry of Property and Land Relations of Dagestan to the Regional Public Foundation "Women's Charitable Hospital". The case was postponed till April 11.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev shall release the arrested journalists. This statement was made by Miklos Harasti, OSCE spokesman for the freedom of speech, at the press conference on the outcomes of his visit to Azerbaijan.

Today, the Leninskiy Federal Court of the capital of Dagestan has finished the trial of Alisultan Gazimagomedov, editor-in-chief of the "Dagestanians" newspaper.

Public ecological organizations are protesting against construction of some of the Olympic objects. They think it was a blunder to select Sochi as the place for Winter Olympics. This opinion was made public at the meeting that took place on April 8th at the central office of the Sochi National Park.

Today in Armenia, on the day of inauguration of the newly elected President Serzh Sarkisyan, friends and relatives of the casualties at night of March 1 held a rally; and the police tried to disperse it.

Human rights activists want a letter to be sent to Russian president-elect Dmitri Medvedev with a demand to hold an efficient and fair investigation into disappearances of people in Northern Caucasus.

Koba Chapliani, Director of the Centre of National Minorities at the Office of Ombudsman of Georgia, thinks that the time has come for the state to make Gipsies an integral part of the Georgian society.

It follows from the message of the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan, which was read on air of the state TV Channel, that the reason of the attempt on Agyl Khalil, an employee of the "Azadlyg" newspaper was the offence of his rejected sexual partner Sergey Strekalin.

In Armenia, early on April 8, in Vanatur district of the city of Razdan, policemen detained nine participants of the hunger strike in support of oppositional activist Sasun Mikaelyan and brought them to the police station.

One of the reasons why authorities of Russia refuse to pay money compensations to former servicemen in Chechnya is in the authorities' intention to minimize expenses on militaries, asserts Igor Sazhin, Chairman of the Komi Human Rights Committee "Memorial".

Today, at 11 a.m.-1 p.m., in Moscow, in Slavyanskaya Square, near the monument to Cyril and Methodius, a picket was held by some 20 human rights activists from the Urals, North of Russia, Siberia and other regions.

According to brother of Salambek Dzakhkiev, a defendant in the case of blowing up the "Neva-Express", who is now kept at the SIZO of Novgorod, Salambek needs hospitalization and thorough treatment.

The European Court for Human Rights has obliged Russia to pay over fourteen thousand euros to Oleg Tetsen, 29, a participant of the war in Chechnya, for breaching his rights to fair trial and possession of property.