News

The case of Einullah Fatullaev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Real Azerbaijan", who was convicted in Azerbaijan, is causing many doubts and gives rise to worry for his life. This was stated by Andres Herkel, Rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee.

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov said that he is ready to remain the head of the republic until he is on demand in this position. His term as President of Chechnya expires in 2012.

Incessant armed conflict in Northern Caucasus; loss of satellite signal of Georgian TV Channel causing an international conflict; Baku and Yerevan restart talking about a new war for Nagorno-Karabakh, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of February 1-7, 2010, in Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

The blog of the web designer Artemiy Lebedev, known for his use of obscene lexicon, causes no harm to public morals. This was the conclusion of the OVD (Interior Division) of the Tver District of Moscow, having studied his LiveJournal and refused the initiative group "Volgogradskiy Proryv" (Volgograd Breakthrough) to open a criminal case against Lebedev for his use of abusive expressions in his blog.

According to Zurab Nogaideli, ex-premier and leader of the oppositional "Movement for Fair Georgia", who visited Moscow on February 8-10 and signed during this visit a cooperation agreement with the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party, believes that restoration of Russian-Georgian relations is crucial for economic development of his country - to get Georgian goods back to the Russian market and give chance to Georgians to earn money and improve their social status.

In the opinion of Timur Khikmatov, head of the PR Department of the Ministry of Transports of the Russian Federation, if Georgia wants to resume air traffic with Russia, she should initiate negotiations at the level of state administrations. In his turn, Georgiy Dokuchava, head of the united transport organization of Georgia, believes that Russia should initiate negotiations, as it was Russia, who closed the air corridor in August 2008.

The former junior sergeant Alexander Sivyakov, who was convicted to four years of imprisonment for mockeries during his military service in the Chelyabinsk garrison over private soldier Andrei Sychov, recruited from Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, has been set free. Andrei Sychov's family believes that Sivyakov was too leniently punished.

The militia refused to ensure safety of the organizers of the rally on February 21 with the demand of fair trial on the case of the ex-militia major Alexei Dymovskiy, capital reform of the MIA and resignation of Vladimir Chernositov, head of the Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department). Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Dymovskiy's official representative, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he was recommended at the UVD to hire private securities for this purpose.

Media recollect about the situation in Northern Caucasus only another resonant murder there, while the local society has got accustomed to murders and no longer perceive them as tragedy. This was stated by Galina Arapova, Director of the Centre in Defence of Media's Rights, in her interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, who added that this should not be the case.

The UVD of Novorossisk and SIZO (pre-trial facility) of Krasnodar are thoroughly studying the publications in mass media about Militia Major Alexei Dymovskiy; the latter entity is even printing out them and takes measures to improve the custody conditions of detainees there. This was reported by Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Alexei Dymovskiy's official representative.

A criminal case has been opened in Karachai-Circassia against the militia major on the fact of beating a detainee, who subsequently died.

Today, Kheda Saratova, head of the Information-Analytical Agency "Objective", has left the United Mobile Group (UMG) of human rights activists, engaged in tracing the situation in the Chechen Republic and investigating the crimes against local residents. Kheda's statement about quitting the UMG was a complete surprise for some of her colleagues.

On February 8, upon expiry of imprisonment, Sardar Alibeili, editor-in-chief of the "Nota" newspaper, was set free. He served his term in minimum security colony No. 14. Mr Alibeili has stated that he will continue his journalistic activities and writing about the problems "of public concern."

Valery Gaevskiy, Governor of the Stavropol Territory, has introduced the post of the Ombudsperson in charge of children's rights. This was reported by the press service of the Governor. Svetlana Adamenko, earlier deputy minister of education of the Territory, was appointed to the post.

In Chechnya, the law enforcer, who shot dead his two colleagues in summer of 2009, when he took them for militants, will face justice. He is under threat of a criminal punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to seven years.

On February 9, the Kirov District Court of Astrakhan authorized arrest of 7 out of 19 servicemen of the local battalion of the Road-Post Service (RPS), suspected of regular extorting bribes from motorists. Now, 11 of them are in custody (four inspectors were taken to the SIZO (pre-trial facility) on February 8 and 7).

Elmin Badalov, editor of the "Polygon" information agency, was dismissed from his 4th year of the Petro-Mechanical Department of the Azerbaijani State Oil Academy (ASOA). He believes that he was sacked for political reasons. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Badalov himself told about it on February 8 at a press conference held at the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS).

A special working group was formed in the office of the Armenian Ombudsman with the aim to deal with the case of the well-known journalist Nikol Pashinyan, an activist of the opposition, who was convicted to seven years of imprisonment. Ombudsman Armen Arutyunyan promised to personally deal with the case.

Today, Deputies of the National Assembly of Dagestan have voted for vesting Magomedsalam Magomedov with the powers of the President of the republic. In his programme speech the new head of Dagestan promised to consolidate the society and not to persecute his opponents.

The incident that happened on February 7 and related with detention of lawyers of United Mobile Group (UMG) - members the created in the end of the last year Public Commission on Chechnya, is convincingly demonstrating that the principles of legality, presumption of innocence and personal immunity are nothing for practical work of some bosses of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the Chechen Republic. This is the opinion of I. A. Kalyapin, head of the headquarters of the UMG.