News

The eyewitnesses assert the skirmish in the capital of Dagestan on March 20, as a result of which four persons were lost and three wounded, was launched by law enforcers. Earlier it was reported that the fire on the patrol car was opened by passengers of a "Zhiguli" car, who were named militants in official statements.

Yuri Budanov will be interrogated within the inquiry of the case related to kidnapping of residents of Chechnya in 2000. This was stated by Alexander Sorochkin, head of Military Department of the ICPO. However, all over again, Budanov should be found.

The skirmish between the agents of the Department of the FSB (DFSB) of the Russian Federation for Ingushetia and, presumably, militants who made their ambush in one of private houses in Ordzhonikidzevskaya village, Sunzha District, continues, as the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by a source in law enforcement bodies. Local residents say that more than 10 power agents were wounded and killed.

Forced migrants from Chechnya who live in temporary accommodation centres (TACs) in Ingushetia are forced to come back home. They say they have nowhere to go.

In Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, the escort has taken away Madina Malsagova, 20, from hospital ward to SIZO (pre-trial detention facility) six hours after delivery. She had also spent her last pregnancy months in the facility.

In Chechnya, arsons of houses of militants' relatives continue. Since summer of 2008, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" has fixed 26 such cases. Human rights activists assert that arsons of houses are used as an instrument of pressure on relatives of those whose children are in the forest.

The Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of Russia has evidences that Georgia made use of cluster ordnance and aviation bombs during the warfare in South Ossetia. This was stated by Vladimir Markin, official spokesman of the ICPO.

On March 25, Magomedkhan Gaziev, owner of the "Lotos" shop and the head of a charitable public organization under the same name, brought a written complaint to the Sovietskiy ROVD of Makhachkala. Mr Gaziev asserts that the Spiritual Department of Moslems (SDM) of Dagestan is to be blamed for the attack on his shop on March 8.

The situation in Gubden village and adjoining territories of the Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan causes alarm in the Republic's leaders and MIA, and has negative effect on the operative situation in the region. This was stated by Magomed Gazimagomedov, Deputy Interior Minister of Dagestan on March 24.

Azerbaijani human rights activists and oppositional politicians have welcomed the decision of the PACE Committee on Legal Matters and Human Rights to restore the post of Special Rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan and appoint German MP Christoph Stresser thereto.

Eleven out of twelve defendants in the criminal case on militants' attack on Ingushetia in June 2004, whose relatives held pickets demanding not to protract the litigation on their joint case, were removed from the IVS (pre-trial detention facility) of the MIA of Ingushetia to the IVS called "White Swan" in Pyatigorsk.

In the evening on March 24, in the Vedeno District of Chechnya, a group of armed persons kidnapped a militiaman. Today in the morning, his body was found.

Residents the Imereti Valley, whose houses are within the construction zone of Sochi Olympiad objects, have drafted an appeal to President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev with a complaint against unsatisfactory terms of resettlement. This was stated today at the press conference convoked by ecologists and public activists.

Today, the Tbilisi City Court has sentenced two activists of the oppositional "People's Movement to Save Georgia" and two members of the Party "Democratic Movement - United Georgia", arrested on March 23, to two months of pre-trial custody.

The Russian government has instructed the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to increase its budgetary allocations for 2009 aimed to pay all the debts and daily allowances to the personnel of the RF's Armed Forces, deployed in the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

To Russia Military Prosecutor's Office has received over a hundred complaints on violations of the rights of the recruits who took part in the August conflict in South Ossetia.

The Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) of Azerbaijan has summed up the "Novruz Marathon" action - a charitable fundraising session in favour of the families of six convicted journalists. The action started on February 25 and ended on March 20 - by the Novruz spring holiday.

Natella Akaba, Secretary of the Public Chamber of Abkhazia and Chair of the Association "Women of Abkhazia" has treated the Belarus' position on recognition of Abkhazia's independence as "frank bargaining." She made this statement in the TV Programme "Akhtuskua" (Events) on the Abkhazian State TV Channel.

The "Union for Democracy" (UD) that unites the oppositional parties of Azerbaijan has stated that the referendum on March 18 on amendments to the Constitution of Azerbaijan was illegitimate.

Today in the morning, an engineering-sapper group of the Internal Troops of Russia's MIA was shelled by unidentified persons from a passenger car. Fortunately, nobody was killed or wounded.