News

The Institute for Peace and Democracy is emphasizing the absurdity of litigation against Novruzali Mamedov, 67, a linguist, head of one of the divisions at the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences, founder and editor-in-chief of the only newspaper in Azerbaijan in the Talysh language "Talyshi Sado", and Elman Guliev, executive secretary of the newspaper, accused of high treason.

Apart from political reasons, the aggravated situation in Ingushetia may also have financial ones. This conclusion was made by Musa Muradov, correspondent of the "Vlast" (Power) Magazine, who has associated with residents of the Republic.

Mikhail Tarantsov, Ombudsman for the Volgograd Region, is concerned with the fate of two residents of the town of Kamyshin, Volgograd Region, who serve their terms in one of the prisons of the Greek Republic.

The state of health of Farkhad Aliev, arrested ex-minister of economic development of Azerbaijan, has again worsened. He suffers from strong heartaches and requires hospitalization.

Raissa Grishechkina, a resident of Rostov-on-Don, has joined the hunger strike demanding to release Vasily Aleksanyan, former vice-president of the YUKOS Oil Company, who is seriously ill but still kept in SIZO (pre-trial facility).

Among the arrested four figurants in the case on a skinhead grouping, suspected of committing of at least 20 murders, whose arrest was sanctioned by the Zamoskvoretskiy Court of Moscow, there are a girl and a minor.

Today, the Moscow Regional Court has passed an acquittal on the case of the nationality-motivated murder of Arthur Sardaryan, 19, committed in a Moscow suburb.

The defendants in the case on the events on October 13, 2005, in the city of Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, want to petition again at court about admission of their relatives and friends to the process as public defenders.

On February 7, the Supreme Court of Karelia will start considering, in private session, the criminal case of Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) Victor Vysokikh, commander of the special operation aimed to stop mass disorders in the city of Kondopoga in September 2006.

Davis Nadaraya, a kidnapped resident of Shamgon village, Zugdidi District of Georgia, was released after a week of detainment in the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict zone.

Sergey Volodin, a National-Bolshevik and one of the coordinators of "The Other Russia" Coalition for the Rostov Region, is back at large.

On February 3, journalist-satirist Mirza Sakit who is imprisoned in Azerbaijan has renewed his protest hunger strike against the refusal of the prison administration to transfer him to the prison hospital despite his poor health condition.

Today the Rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Committee Andres Herkel and Evgenia Zhivkova have begun their meetings in Baku within their four-day visit.

Next week, on the initiative of the United Opposition of Georgia, a campaign will be launched in Georgia under the motto "I didn't elect Saakashvili". Today, the leaders of the opposition have informed journalists about it at the press conference held in front of the building of the Parliament of Georgia.

The trial on the case about recognition of the information materials published by the "Voice of Beslan" will be held in the Prevoberezhny District of North Ossetia.

Yesterday, on February 1, the Tbilisi Hotel "Kortiyard Marriott" hosted the presentation of the International Foundation of Meskhetian Turks named "Vatan", where Suleiman Barbakadze is the Chairman, and of a book about Meskhetian Turks.

Unknown armed persons kidnapped Daud Khutiev, 20, a resident of Nazran, the Republic of Ingushetia, from the hospital located in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.

The organizing committee of the protest rally in Ingushetia has held a sitting where a decision was made to postpone the date of the action from February 23 to some date in May.

In its 2007 report on Armenia, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) treats the defence of human rights in Armenia as "unsatisfactory". The report accents the pressure and prosecution of the opposition.

The leaders of the "Hrant Dink" International Foundation that was established under the initiative of Hrant Dink's family has addressed the Prosecutor's Office of Turkey because of death threats and glorifications of Dink's assassins that arrived to the electronic address of the Foundation.