News

Ambassador of the USA Ann Dersey has called the authorities of Azerbaijan to strictly punish the persons guilty of violence against journalists.

On June 27, a press conference was held at the central library of Grozny, where the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" (HRC "Memorial") presented Part Four of the Violence Chronicle in Chechnya named "People Live Here", covering the period from July to September 2001.

The editorial board of "Novaya Gazeta", where the assassinated journalist Anna Politkovskaya worked as an observer, will demand "initiation of a criminal case on the fact of information leaks from the bowels of the State Office of Public Prosecutor."

Residents of the Gudermes District of Chechnya suspect that the militaries of the special-purpose battalion of the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff) "Vostok" (East) are destroying the tombs of their victims.

Today, the Nasiminskiy District Court of the capital of Azerbaijan, presided by Judge Shakhin Abdullaev, has continued the trial of Sergey Strekalin accused of inflicting a knife wound on March 13, 2008, to Agil Halil, a journalist of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) newspaper.

Ella Kesaeva, co-chairperson of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan" from North Ossetia, was elected to co-chair the All-Russian Civil Congress (ARCC).

Relatives of Rashid Gazilaliev, who was killed in a special operation in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, assert that they offered to give out the person who was in the blocked apartment without fight, but militiamen had rejected the offer.

On June 27, the criminal case on three militiamen accused of extorting money from illegally detained minors was delivered to the court of the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia.

On June 30, the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has repeatedly addressed President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev with a request to fix up a monument in Baku, in the Metbuat Avenue, to the editor-in-chief of the "Monitor" magazine Elmar Guseinov who was assassinated on March 2, 2005.

In Tskhinval, at night of June 30, Georgian special services kidnapped Valery Tadtaev, 32, a citizen of the Russian Federation, a native of North Ossetia, runs a statement of the State Committee for Information and Press of South Ossetia.

President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh has treated the today's explosions near the Sukhumi marketplace to be an act of terrorism and accused Georgian special services for committing it. Sergey Bagapsh has also ordered starting from July 1 to ban any traffic in Georgian-Abkhazian border that runs along River Ingur.

Four citizens out of six who received fragmental wounds as a result of today's explosions in the area of Sukhumi marketplace in Abkhazia were hospitalized to the Sukhumi clinical hospital, and now their lives are under no threat.

Today, relatives of the missing residents of Dagestan Ali Zalitdinov and Idris Guchakaev, who have again rallied near the building of the Republic's Prosecutor's Office, were told both guys were detained by militiamen and are now kept in the SIZO (pre-trial detention facility).

At night on June 28, in the vicinity of a 9-storey apartment house in the Akushinskiy Avenue in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, the regime of counterterrorist operation was introduced. According to law enforcement bodies, militants were blocked in one of the apartments.

At the regular round of American-Azerbaijani democracy dialogue that was held on June 27 in Baku, David Kramer, assistant of the US State Secretary on democracy and human rights, called the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure democratic character of the forthcoming presidential election.

The government of Chechnya has launched a PR-campaign against Sulim Yamadaev, commander of the "Vostok" (East) battalion with the aim to conceal their own crimes. This was stated to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Ruslan Yamadaev, Sulim Yamadaev's relative.

Eka Beseliya, Secretary General of the Party "For United Georgia" and advocate of Irakliy Okruashvili, Party leader, is going to address the French Embassy for providing political asylum to her son Rati Milorava who is 15.

According to Gyulnara Rustamova, an activist of the public movement "Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights", new protest actions organized by relatives of missing or murdered persons cannot be excluded.

The well-known Azerbaijani journalist Makhal Ismailoglu, who was detained on June 27 and then released after many hours of interrogation by the police of the Apsheronsk District of Baku, is convinced that the authorities want to arrest him on false charges for his critical publications.

According to Abkhazian President Sergey Bagapsh, whatever the balance of political forces in the international arena may be, Abkhazia will never be a part of Georgia again.