News

"People still disappear in the republic, and unacceptable deaths are registered their. I think it is normal for the Council of Europe to monitor the situation in Chechnya, this question is fully in its line," stated Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Alvaro Gil-Robles.

The Krishna devotees raise their concern that the recent actions by the authorities are aimed at extruding their community from the republic.

Amnesty International has launched its annual report about the human rights situation in 156 countries of the world.

The opposition party Popular Front of Azerbaijan is going to hold a meeting in Baku on May 29 to demand that human rights be observed and arrested opposition leaders be released.

Twice a month, officers of the Chechen military prosecutor's office receive residents of the Chechen republic having complaints about violations of their rights by federal soldiers. The reception is conducted in the office of the Committee to Secure Constitutional Rights of the Residents of Chechnya.

The date when final results of the War Prize competition are to be summed up has been postponed till June 15 in view of the recent tragic developments in Grozny.

The theme of the action is the variance between official data and data of the committees of soldier's mothers concerning the number of servicemen killed in Chechnya.

Right after the detention of Daudov and Dzhabrailov, police officers cut ropes of the tents in which the activists' families live. Both the detainees are held in the Sunzha district police department now.

"The fact that the getting of official grants by human rights and ecological organizations is equated to the maintenance of "dubious interests" gives away the way of thinking typical for the State Security Committee (KGB) when any connection with the West is taken as something illegal," reads the statement by the Russian Movement for Human Rights.

Mikhail Trepashkin, a former Federal Security Service officer, has been sentenced to 4.6 years in a settlement on a trumped-up charge. His lawyers and a human rights activist speak about that.

Igor Akhba, Abkhazia's envoy in Russia, noted that the referendum conducted in 1999 showed that the majority of the Abkhazian population was for its independence.

Russia is ready to explain the real situation in Chechnya to all interested countries and organizations and "is doing it patiently," the Foreign Ministry's spokesman said.

Spokesman for the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Ilya Shabalkin emphasized that "there is no any intensification of the rebel activity, several gangs numbering from five to ten people have been revealed and operations to liquidate them are being conducted now."

Several people were injured in the attack. They cut with splinters of smashed panes. An investigation in the incident has been launched.

Chairperson of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly National Committee of Azerbaijan Arzu Abdullayeva has made an appeal to international organization concerning the issue of granting political refugee status and asylum in a third country to two Armenian turncoats, Artur Apresian and Roman Terian.

Negotiations on Nagorny Karabakh are held within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group now, and it completely suits the Armenian side, said Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian.

Participants in the conference "Karabakh: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" believe that "Azerbaijan has a right to liberate occupied territories by military means as nobody asked for permission to occupy a part of the country."

Azerbaijan authorities plan to pardon Alikram Gumbatov on one condition. He will have to leave Azerbaijan for the Netherlands and reunite with his family in this country after his release.

Abkhazian Prime Minister Raul Khadzhimba has turned down the offer by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to reunite with Georgia, which the Georgian leader addressed to the Abkhazians and the Osetins.

The alleged reason for this large-scale mopping up operation was that four Russian policemen's dead bodies were discovered on the outskirts of Chernorechye in the evening of May 24.