News

Residents of Ingushetia have informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that power agencies of the Republic are fabricating a criminal case against their relative Ruslan Terkakiev, 23, and subject him to torture.

Saturday, November 21, 2008, is exactly one year after the murder of Farid Babaev, leader of the Dagestan Regional Branch of the "Yabloko" Party, a prominent public figure and human rights activist.

Today, an opening ceremony took place in the capital of Armenia - of the monument to the national currency - dram, which was officially accepted as the national payment unit on November 22, 1993. In the opinion of Armenian authorities, the monument is "a serious work of art", which will be interesting for foreign tourists.

Former inhabitants of the Temporary Accommodation Centres in Chechnya, whom the Republic's authorities promised to provide housing in the first order, now have to pay for leased apartments or live with their relatives, reports the Human Rights Centre "Memorial".

The Labour Party of Georgia has offered all the political parties and organizations of the country to draft and sign a joint general declaration with a demand of immediate resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili.

On November 21, the first group of Russian pilgrims departed from the seaport of Sochi to Mecca. 200 believers, most of them are residents of Ingushetia, will initially cross the Black Sea by a ferry, and then continue their Hajj by land transport.

North Ossetia is affected by the global financial crisis. Today, it is manifested, first of all, through cutting of jobs by the major local enterprises.

According to the examination, none of the bullets extracted from the bodies of casualties and wounded persons of the events on March 1 in Yerevan was shot from a sniper's rifle, Agvan Ovsepyan, General Public Prosecutor of Armenia, told Thomas Hammarberg, Supreme Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, who came to Yerevan.

Somali pirates received ransom and released tanker "Jenius", captured on September 27. Among the crew members there are six citizens of Georgia.

The press service of the President of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) has reported that residents helped law enforcement bodies to stop illegal gambling establishments.

Ella Kesaeva, co-chair of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan", asserts that the so-called "Beslan terrorists", who seized the school in this North-Ossetian city four years ago, could be the agents of Russian special agencies - UBOP (Unit for Fighting Organized Crime) and FSB (Federal Security Bureau. This can be concluded, according to Kesaeva, from biography details of the attackers.

Samvel Nikoyan, Chairman of the ad hoc commission of the National Assembly of Armenia, which was set up to study the events on March 1 in Yerevan, has confirmed in his conversation with journalists the words that he addressed to a foreign correspondent that firearms were used and a sniper worked in the course of the said events.

Yesterday, on November 20, the court prolonged the term of custody for three residents of Kabardino-Balkaria, who are kept in Pyatigorsk SIZO, till January 11, 2009. According to advocate Magomed Abubakarov, in the course of investigation the suspects were exposed to violence.

Four residents of Ingushetia have stated their illegal arrest and torture at militia units. According to their statement, they were forced into confession of the crime they never committed.

Judge Evgeniy Zubov can be brought to disciplinary responsibility, if it is proved that his decision to make the trial of Anna Politkovskaya's murder case closed was illegal.

The Supreme Court of Dagestan has made a decision to continue consideration of the murder case of Farid Babaev, leader of the regional branch of "Yabloko" Party in the open regime.

Today, in the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria, at the proceedings on events of October 13, 2005, the prosecution asked questions to candidates for jurymen. A break was made in the trial till November 28, when the defence and prosecution should present their motivated challenges.

The States as a whole are satisfied with the progress in their relations with Azerbaijan, but Washington has some questions which are causing concern. Among them is the situation with the freedom of speech. This was discussed yesterday, on November 19, at the press conference in Baku, which was given by David Kramer, under Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labour.

The Rostov Garrison Military Court has rejected the complaint of Valery Markaryan, father of a mandatory service soldier, against the decision of the Military Public Prosecutor of the North-Caucasian Military District (NCMD), who had reversed the inspector's decision to initiate a criminal case against officer Alexei Gvozdkov. The latter, according to Markaryan, incited him to bribery for making the verdict to his son more lenient.

On Wednesday, November 19, the general court of Yerevan communities Kentron and Noek-Marash convicted Smbat Aivazyan, a member of the Board of the "Republic" opposition party and former minister of state revenues, to two years of imprisonment and fined him by 300,000 drams (about 1000 US dollars).