News

The health of Tigran Arakelian, arrested member of opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC), is exceedingly grave, he needs serious treatment, claims his lawyer Vardui Elbakian. The oppositionist has been in prison hospital for 10 days.

A process of enlarging municipalities by merging them is under way in Azerbaijan. The respective law was approved by Ilkham Aliyev, Azeri president, on July 23. According to the document, the number of self-government bodies is to be cut from 2,757 to 1,764.

The mandate of the European Union mission of observers (EUOM) in Georgia has been extended for one year, the appropriate decision has been made at the EU ministerial in Brussels.

Ingushetia opposition intends to continue at its new site the cause started by oppositionist Magomed Evloyev, murdered owner of the "Ingushetia.Ru" site, reports Magomed Khazbiyev, Ingushetia oppositionist.

Georgian opposition is not going to hold daily meetings in front of the parliament building, noted Levan Gachechiladze, one of the leaders of opposition and the "Defend Georgia" movement, at the July 24 meeting.

In connection with the completion of investigation and the majority of court trials on the cases of Armenian oppositionists arrested in the course of the 2008 presidential elections and post-election events, the opposition Armenian National Congress (АNC) has accused the Armenian law enforcement agencies of unlawful actions and support of the "unlawful regime".

Uve Schram, German diplomat and deputy head of the European Commission International Investigation Commission on the Causes of the Five-day War in South Ossetia in August 2008, has spent three days in Tbilisi. According to him, the European commission on investigating the August war events is going to disclose its report at the end of September.

The chair of the European Union represented by the Sweden Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement condemning the arrest of young activists in Azerbaijan. "The European Union is deeply concerned with the arrest and imprisonment of young activists Adnan Gadzhizade and Emin Milli in Azerbaijan", states the document submitted to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent at the EU office in Baku.

The Armenian court of appeal has upheld the decision of the court of first instance on arresting Tigran Arakelian, an 18-year old opposition activist accused of beating a policeman, as a measure of restraint. The court dismissed the petition of lawyer Vardui Elbakian on releasing the young man on bail.

Most functionaries and businessmen of the Republic of Ingushetia "pay kickback" to militants, claims Magomed Khazbiev, leader of Ingushetia opposition. According to him, civil servants continue to pay militants in the same way they were doing it under Murat Ziazikov, the previous president.

20 people, including seven children under 10, have been taken to hospital with food poisoning in Novopavlovsk (Stavropol Krai).

In the last two days, in Ingushetia, two armed attacks of unidentified persons on shop owners were registered, as a result of which two persons were lost.

Maskhud Abdullaev, son of one of the leaders of Chechen militants Supyana Abdullaev, who has the status of a UN refugee, has managed to get over from Chechnya to Azerbaijan, and therefrom - immediately to a third country. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told today about it by a representative of Chechen refugees who referred to Maskhud Abdullaev's relatives.

In early July, resettlement of the refugees from the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia, living in Ingushetia, should have begun. However, it did not happen, as reported by Ingush oppositionist Magomed Khazbiev. The reason was in the attempt on President Yunus-Bek Evkurov. His Administration says that the agreement on resettlement existed, but particular dates were not specified.

One of the main versions of the house downfall in Astrakhan is an illegal reconstruction with rearrangement of hostel rooms into apartments with violation of safety rules at civil works, which resulted in damaging the integrity of load-bearing walls. Today, this was reported by the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO).

Today, Sergey Nazarov, Vice-Governor of the Rostov Region, has informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that a day of mourning was announced in the region to commemorate 21 casualties in the accident near Samarskoe village, Rostov Region.

Chechen people feel indignant of the actions of the republic's authorities, who not just ignored the farewell ceremony with Natalia Estemirova on July 16, and then tried to hamper her colleagues and friends to see her off for ever, but also organized celebrations near the office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Grozny.

Today in Strasbourg, the decision on the case "Mutsaeva versus Russia" was announced, in which the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) has recognized Russia's violation of a whole range of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in relation to Khizir Tepsurkaev, detained by power agents in 2001 in Chechnya and missing since.

On July 22, the Day of National Press of Azerbaijan, a protest action against suppression of rights and freedoms in this country was held in Paris in front of Azerbaijani embassy. The action was organized by the "Reporters without Borders", an international organization in defence of journalists, with participation of a group of young Azerbaijanis.

After the picket in Russian capital aimed to commemorate Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", its organizer Victor Sakirko was detained by the militia.