News

Residents of Astrakhan - natives of Dagestan Elmira Gadmimuratova, Zalimkhan Ahmedov, Musaldibir Magomedov, Gentar Gazichaev, Sekhran Dzhalilov, Aslavdin Shikhaliev and Ibragim Ibragimov - have addressed Presidents of Russia and Dagestan Dmitri Medvedev and Magomedsalam Magomedov with a letter asking to help in releasing their children kept at the temporary custody facility (known as "IVS") of Astrakhan since June 30, 2009.

The problem of clearing the territory of the Chechen Republic of explosives calls for a special federal programme. According to experts, the republic needs end-to-end de-mining of about 24,000 hectares.

The Krasnodar Territorial Court has refused to satisfy the complaint of former militiaman Alexei Dymovskiy, who tried to challenge the decision of Primorskiy Court of Novorossisk.

Earlier kidnapped Zelimkhan Chitigov, 20, a resident of Ingushetia, was found by his relatives in the building of Karabulak OVD severely beaten. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent learnt about it from his mother Zuhra Chitigova.

Madina Khadzieva, press secretary of the Ingush MIA, has confirmed to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent the information about liquidation by DFSB agents of Zelimkhan Oziev as a suspected militant. He was murdered in Kantyshevo village, Nazran District of Ingushetia. However, Ms Khadzieva gave no details, since, according to her story, the data about this special operation was kept by the Russian DFSB for Ingushetia. Oziev's relatives assert that Zelimkhan was subjected to extrajudicial execution.

Today, Magomedzagir Isagadjiev, a resident of Novy Kostek village, Khasavyurt District of Dagestan, who was kidnapped on April 27 by unidentified armed persons, supposedly, power agents, in Makhachkala right from a hospital ward, came back home. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Isa Magomedov, head of the village administration.

The organizers of today's rally in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where clashes with the police took place, assert that the action was peaceful. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) says that the protesters threw stones at policemen.

The Information Centre (IC) "Volgograd-Ecopress" and the Centre "Eco-Accord" (Moscow) have launched, together with the IPEN (International POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) Elimination Network) their global campaign "Without Mercury: You, I and Children". According to the initiators of the action, they plan to lobby adoption in 2013 of "a tough global agreement on mercury." Researches within the campaign have shown that the Volgograd Region is still under threat of mercury pollution.

Lithuanian law enforcers assert that they prevented a terror act, planned to be committed in Russia, according to the Lithuanian State Office of Public Prosecutor, by Egle Kusaite, a citizen of Lithuania.

In the near future, the former Militia Major Alexei Dymovskiy promises to make his new video appeal revealing facts about 800 cases of corruption in the MIA.

Andrei Lebedev, Deputy of the State Duma (from the LDPR), sent an appeal to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev asking him to clarify the situation with contacts of the head of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov with extraterrestrials.

On May 4, four families from the Imereti Lowland, whose houses and land plots had been alienated because of building Olympic objects, marked their housewarming parties in new cottages in Nekrasovskoe village, Krasnodar Territory. At the same time, other Imereti residents were surprised to learn that their resettlement to new houses in Nekrasovskoe is postponed, or cancelled whatsoever.

Dmitri Peskov, press secretary of Russian Premier, has stated that the Reporters Without Borders (RWB), who called Vladimir Putin in their annual report an enemy of the free press in Russia, had superficial knowledge of the topic. The press service of Ramzan Kadyrov, President of the Chechen Republic, stated that the estimate given by the RWB was biased when ranking Kadyrov among oppressors of the freedom of speech.

The Khamovniki Court of Moscow has sentenced Konstantin Pereverzev, who struck on March 31 at a Moscow metro station Liudmila Alekseeva, head of the oldest Russian human rights organization - Moscow Helsinki Group - to one conditional year.

As reported by the spokesman of the Department of the FSB (DFSB) for Ingushetia, the two women injured today in the course of a special operation in central Nazran (one of them later died in hospital), were helpers of Magomed Gardanov, leader of Ingush armed underground, liquidated in the skirmish.

The residents of Kara-Tyube village, Babayurt District of Dagestan, detained on April 15, were set free on April 18 only after active interference of human rights activists and media. All this time 16 persons were in the open air, since the ROVD (District Interior Division), where they were brought, has no enough room for keeping that number.

In Astrakhan, employees of a bank branch were stealing money for several months in a row from accounts of orphans and minors left without parental care.

President of Chechnya is officially accused of involvement in murder of his former security; attempt committed in Kabardino-Balkaria on former and present state officials; journalists are again in authorities' disgrace, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of April 26-May 2, 2010, in the Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Prime Minister of Abkhazia Sergey Shamba and George Drndorski, representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and deputy coordinator of programmes for Eastern Europe, discussed at their meeting on May 3 the opportunity to continue the programme of the ICRC Mission in Abkhazia on searching those who disappeared in the 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhazian war and identification of its casualties.

On May 3, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, son of the ex-President of Georgia, who is in custody in Tbilisi, announced his termless hunger strike in prison hospital as a protest against the actions of the prison administration.