News

The party's statement was issued at the April 6 press conference. It is addressed to ambassadors of the Council of Europe's Member States as well as to the US ambassador in order to inform them of the mass detentions of opposition activists.

The Governor of Montana, Judy Martz, said it was necessary to commemorate the 89th anniversary of the genocide since it will play a great role in the cause of ruling out a chance for such crimes to be repeated.

The peculiarity of the action was the increase in the number of its participants due to members of the youth movement Yabloko and supporters of the Democratic Russia party, reorganized on the initiative of Yuli Ribakov.

Recent researches display that in spite of assurances by the Russian leadership about stabilization of the situation in Chechnya, mass human rights violations, such as torture, forcible disappearances and extrajudicial executions are going on there.

Law enforcement officers discovered a repeater that militants used to broadcast their speeches on television.

A bomb exploded on April 6 in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, in a compound occupied by Russian military officers. General Alexander Studenikin, head of the Russian Central Command in the Transcaucasia, was injured in the blast.

Militant leaders' messenger has surrendered to the law enforcement bodies in Chechnya, reported the joint press center of the Regional Headquarters on the Counter-terrorist Operation in the North Caucasus.

People's Artist of Azerbaijan Flora Kerimova is an activist of the opposition Musavat party. That is why she has been denied access to both state and private TV channels in Azerbaijan for over a year.

Many residents of the republic hold that recently, Kadyrov's people have been actively introducing the practice to take relatives of Chechen commanders hostages compelling those commanders to "voluntarily give themselves up" for the sake of saving their close people's lives.

The 2004 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) ceremony is to take place in Geneva on April 7. This year's MEA goes to Lida Yusupova, head of the Grozny Office of the Human Rights Center Memorial.

"I am convinced there will be no large-scale military operations in the zone of the Karabakh conflict. People in Azerbaijan are not so silly to forget about the military potential of our country," coordinator of the Karabakh NGO Helsinki Initiative - 92 Karen Ogandzhanian said in his interview with the new newspaper Demo published in Stepanakert.

Over 50 followers of the first Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who have been opposing to the power of ex-president Eduard Shevardnadze and hiding in forests in the Samgrelo region (Western Georgia) for the last 12 years, laid down arms and returned to peaceful life in Tsalendjikha on April 4.

The press services of the regional interior department and the Federal Security Service (FSB) report that in the course of the operation to reveal illegal migrants, places have been established where many people breaking the rules of residence in Russia live.

Over 10 students at the Ingush State University who participated in a meeting at the Government House in Magas recently, have been reprimanded by the university administration. The Caucasian Knot correspondent learnt it from one of the university students.

As reported by the Krasnodar regional NGO Creative Union "Southern Wave", the subject of the discussion will be "Civil Education as a Way to Pubic Policy".

An explosive device was set off on the federal route Kavkaz when the president's car was moving to Magas. Murat Zyazikov did not suffer.

The NGO activists assert the 2002-2003 Kutaisi city budget was worked out incorrectly and budget funds were not spent for the purpose.

Outstanding human rights activist Elena Boner, widow of Academician Andrey Sakharov, holds Vladimir Putin is in fault for the Chechen war on the Russian part, and Akhmat Kadyrov is in fault for it on the Chechen part.

"We will not allow human rights in Adjaria to be trampled underfoot because somebody there wants to preserve his material status and monopoly", said the Georgian president.

Federal forces and the Chechen president's security service carried out several special operations in the mountains and the forests to arrest members of bandit formations who were preparing large-scale terrorist attacks both in and outside of Chechnya.