News

On April 5, the Sovietskiy District Court of Krasnodar sentenced Vladislav Gmyrya and Pavel Vetrov, the organizer and one of the members of the extremist group named "Pit Bull" to 6 years of imprisonment in a maximum security colony.

Two girls-believers were detained in the course of their religious service in the city of Novoanninskiy, Volgograd Region, and brought to the local OVD (Interior Division), where their personal things were confiscated; then, searches began in Jehovah's Witnesses' apartments with confiscation of property and money - searches were conducted without witnesses and protocols. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Grigory Martynov, representative of the press service of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

After the terror acts in Moscow metro on March 29, the Russian society started discussing the idea of punishing terrorists' parents. Supporters of this idea believe that the family shall be responsible for the acts of its member, while opponents are sure that innocent persons shall not be punished.

The explosion at the Lubyanka metro station on March 29 was triggered by Mariam Sharipova, born in 1982, a native of Dagestan and a wife of one of the leaders of Dagestan militants. This was reported by the Federal Operative Staff of the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC).

The crimes committed on March 1, 2008, in Yerevan should not remain unpunished; they should be solved, and political prisoners should be set free. This was stated today at a press conference by Souhayr Belhassen, President of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), who added that her delegation came to Armenia not to hang awards.

The criminal case, initiated by the Investigatory Department (ID) for the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office) against the former militiaman Alexei Dymovskiy is stopped.

Now, the video clip, where the leader of North-Caucasian militants Dokku Umarov reported about his involvement in the explosions in Moscow metro on March 29, is not available in the YouTube resource, since, according to Alla Zabrovskaya, PR director of the Google Russia, it was marked and deleted by moderators.

The picket planned by the oppositional "Musavat" Party on April 6 in front of the building of the executive authority of the city of Baku with a demand to ensure the freedom of assembly was reappointed to April 14. This was stated by Arif Gadjily, head of the central office of the "Musavat" Party.

Today, the Zavodskoy District Court of Grozny has treated as extremist the publications about the Chechen Republic in the Big Russian Encyclopaedia and made a decision to confiscate the 58th volume of the edition.

Four law enforcers of the Chechen Republic will face trial for extortion and excess of official powers. A high-ranking militia officer and his three subordinates are accused of illegal detention and extortion of a large sum of money from two local entrepreneurs.

The advocates of the convicts for transportation of explosives to the place of explosion of the "Neva-Express" train in 2007 plan to appeal against the verdict of guilty and to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Their relatives state that the litigation and the verdict were absurd, while detention of the defendants looked more like kidnapping and robbery.

Inscriptions "Allah Akbar!" and "Death to Russians!" appeared on the wall of the metro station "Planernaya" in Moscow. Now, the power agencies of the capital try to find the authors of this graffiti, who, according to eyewitnesses, were natives of the Caucasus.

An appeal to President of Russia with a demand to cancel Article 282 of the Criminal Code (CC) of the Russian Federation ("Kindling hatred or enmity and humiliation of human dignity") was placed in the Internet page of the Party "Homeland: Common Sense". The appeal already has some five hundred subscriptions, said Mikhail Delyagin, chairman of the organizing committee of the Party, at the press conference held at the Independent Press Centre.

In the opinion of Alexander Cherkasov, a member of the board of the International Society "Memorial", one of the roots of terrorism in Russia is that residents of the Caucasus are treated not like other citizens of Russia, moreover, not like Muscovites. And in the opinion of political scientist Sergey Markedonov, today the war on terror is seen exclusively as a police action; but the problem cannot be solved by police operations only.

Under the latest data, as a result of the terror acts committed today in Karabulak, two persons were lost and 13 more wounded. President of Ingushetia asked the Kremlin to render material aid to the casualties and victims.

Robert Shlegel, a Russian State Duma Deputy and a member of the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party, has brought to consideration of the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament a draft amendment to the law on the mass media, assuming a ban on any citing of terrorists' statements.

In Georgia, 66 inmates will be at large before term and welcome Easter in their families. The respective decision was made by the commission on conditional-early relief at its sitting on April 2.

Today, the court has released under recognizance not to leave a muscovite Konstantin Pereverzev, who struck the famous human rights defender Liudmila Alekseeva at the action in memory of the victims of the terror act committed at the Park Kultury metro station. Pereverzev admitted his guilt and repented. But Alekseeva is not going to forgive him.

The meeting of Armenian and Turkish intellectuals, forthcoming on April 24-25 in Ankara, will discuss the issues related to causes and consequences of Armenians' genocide in the Ottoman Turkey.

On April 3, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Georgia stopped accepting applications from the parties willing to take part in the elections to institutions of local self-government to be held on May 30. In total, the CEC received applications from 36 parties.