News

The voter turnout at presidential election in Ingushetia made 92.3%. This was reported by Mussa Evloev, head of the Central Electoral Commission of Ingushetia, during a videoconference with the information centre of CEC of Russia "Election-2008".

In Chechnya, Dmitri Medvedev, the official "successor" of Vladimir Putin, was a confident winner of the presidential election.

On March 2, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent visited three polling stations of Volgograd and talked to voters. Many respondents said that they had voted for Dmitri Medvedev, for having no other choice.

The General Prosecutor's Office of Armenia has identified the personalities of all the eight victims in the clashes between supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the police and OMON on March 1 in Yerevan.

The State Office of Public Prosecutor of Armenia has informed that Levon Ter-Petrosyan, ex-candidate for the president and leader of the opposition, is a figurant in the case about mass disorders in Yerevan on March 1.

Today in the morning, in front of the Galskiy UN Office, a protest rally was held by relatives of David Sigua, a citizen of Abkhazia and head of the local electoral commission who was kidnapped on February 3, 2007, by Georgian special agencies.

Today, a group of Abkhazian journalists have addressed the President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh with a request to release the Georgian journalists detained in the Galskiy District.

Armenian police on March 1 used excessive force and violence to disperse demonstrators protesting peacefully against recent election results, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Armenian government should launch a prompt and independent investigation into the use of lethal force by security forces to quell demonstrations and rioting overnight on March 1, 2008, Human Rights Watch said today.

Today, Svetlin Sergeyenkov, an employee of the Sukhumi UN Office for Human Rights, has addressed the Service of the State Security of Abkhazia with a request to have a meeting with detained journalists from Georgia Malkhaz Basilaya and David Tsotsoriya.

On February 28, employees of the FSB could have shot dead two men and a woman who had been kidnapped earlier, having simulated a skirmish and planting the weapons.

As of 11:30 p.m. local time, the rally in the centre of Yerevan continues, despite the state of emergency introduced by President of Armenia, according to official information, because of disorders in the capital.

The Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland Ilkka Kanerva has condemned the use of force against peaceful demonstrators in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

On February 29, in Makhachkala, well-known Dagestan journalist and publicist Zaur Gaziev was beaten by unknown persons.

Advocate Onise Meboniya asserts that the visit to Georgia of Louise Arbor, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had an absolutely formal character and brought no essential results.

On February 28, the court continued the proceeding on the claim of the Regional Public Movement "Chechen Committee of National Salvation" against the Department of the Federal Registration Service for the Republic of Ingushetia.

The relatives of Batyr Moshkhoev, who was arrested on charges of taking part in mass disorders in Nazran on January 26, assert that the young man had nothing to do with the above events and is kept behind the bars without a slightest reason.

Today in Makhachkala, journalists of the "Chernovik" (Blueprint) newspaper held a picket against voluntary actions of the UBOP employees who have launched a series of targeted audits of non-state mass media.

In the context of recent attacks on natives of Kabardino-Balkaria in Moscow, public organizations and political parties of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic sent a letter to President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

On February 26, the Iranian authorities stopped the service in memory of the victims of Khodzhaly tragedy in the Teheran mosque "Nur".