News

Federal security agencies together with Moscow-backed Chechen armed units are conducting large-scale purges in the villages of Sernovodskaya and Assinovskaya in the Sunzha district of the Chechen Republic.

In such a way, the members of the Union of Democratic Revival express their protest against the results of the 28 March parliamentary elections in Georgia under a proportional representation system.

Shaa Turlayev gave himself up as a result of special measures taken by the Chechen president's security service and law-enforcement agencies, reported the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.

The chairman of the Ichkerian parliamentary committee on foreign relations, Akhyad Idigov, has sent a letter to the human rights organization Sintar via e-mail in which he asserts that Akhmadov's plan is a trap if not reviewed.

Council members considered the issue of the observance of rights and freedoms of servicemen deployed on the territory of the region.

The last tent was folded there today and the last 137 refugees left the camp for Chechnya.

A week before the elections for the Georgian parliament, South Osetia's parliament passed a resolution on the illegitimacy of this procedure on the territory of the unrecognized republic.

Addressing the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on March 25, US diplomat Douglas Davidson said: "The United States urges Russian federal and local authorities to support voluntary returns to Chechnya and to provide alternative shelter for IDPs [internally displaced persons] who wish to remain in Ingushetia."

Authorities of the Adjarian Autonomous Republic made an attack on the only opposition newspaper Batumtsi, reported the Our Adjaria political movement.

"We send a letter asking the prosecutor's office to provide information on virtually every abduction. They open a criminal case following every abduction. Most of the prosecutor office's replies to our requests say that the kidnappers have not been found," the Memorial spokesman, Dmitry Grushkin, said.

On March 26, Russian soldiers conducted a special operation in the village of Duba-Yurt, Chechnya's Shali district.

Vazha Shengelia was last seen at 2 a.m. on March 30, in the yard of his brother's house. Members of the party assert he was abducted.

A car with two officers of federal security agencies was fired by unknown people from automatic weapons in the 4th microdistrict of Grozny on March 28.

We call your attention to the information statement by the Committee to Protect Rights of Ilgar Ibragimoglu.

"We consider the happening a sequel to the atmosphere of political intolerance that has been seen in the country recently," reads a statement by the Yerevan Press Club, the Union of Armenian Journalists, Internews Armenia, and the Glasnost Defense Foundation.

An unexampled trial has started in Novocherkassk. The one who is standing trial is an organizer of the international criminal group that has been supplying white slaves from Rostov Region to the United Arab Emirates.

Basayev accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ignoring Basayev's earlier call for Russian authorities to observe international law in Chechnya - specifically to end to alleged executions without trial and the disappearance of civilians - in return for an end to Chechen terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia, according to a letter published Tuesday on a rebel Web site.

According to Aslan Abashidze, the decision by the Georgian authorities to conduct preliminary registration of voters led to the reduction in the number of voters in Adjaria.

Only two Georgian political parties, the ruling party National Movement - Democrats and the Right - Industrialists, have obtained enough votes to be represented in parliament, the Central Election Commission announced on Wednesday, March 31.

People came from different districts and towns of the republic. They demand that the authorities should find their relatives and friends abducted by "security officers" recently and should put an end to the arbitrariness of officers of both Russian and local security structures.