News

The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied a visa to Lord Judd, the former rapporteur on Chechnya to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In Moscow he was to take part in a Peace Prize award ceremony on March 10.

Kavkaz-Center agency received a message from a group called White Shadows claiming responsibility for the explosion in the Metro on February 6, 2004.

"This case once again demonstrates the Russian government do all they can to prevent the press from covering developments in Chechnya," RSF representatives say.

"One can say for sure presently these vehicles were meant for large-scale terrorist acts," the officer on duty of Chechnya's Internal Affairs Ministry told us.

The Georgian television company Rustavi-2 says police officers beat its reporter Vakho Komakhidze in Batumi, Ajaria, on March 5.

A special operation under the personal command of Georgia's Interior Minister led to detention of a group of major criminals in the Imereti region.

The suit concerning Vladimir Putin's interview about "Nord-Ost" published by the Kommersant-Vlast weekly was filed with the Tverskoy Court of Moscow by the Nord-Ost organization. The plaintiffs ask for the indemnity at the rate of 1 million rubles to be paid by the magazine and 10 million rubles to be paid by Vladimir Putin to each plaintiff.

The only professional and constantly working independent journalistic organization in Chechnya receives no subsidies and grants and publishes a daily news summary using its own funds.

The Court for Grave Crimes sentenced four defendants to imprisonment for the periods from 3 to 5 years and put five defendants on probation for the periods from 4 to 5 years.

The head of the information and analytical section of the North Osetian parliament, Fatima Khabalova, announced it on March 4.

The Committee to Struggle Against Repressions and Election Fraud in Azerbaijan appealed to Azerbaijan President Ilkham Aliyev to release persons arrested in connection with the developments of October 15 and 16, 2003.

"Women are lured into the net under the pretext of subsequent placement in a job and all kinds of promises. Girls are often bought from their own parents for a mere song. Then they are transported to Pakistan, where "bosses" buy them," said head of the Center for Legal Assistance to Migrants Aliovsat Aliyev.

The ceremony will take place at the conference hall of the State Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Lavrushinsky Pereulok, at 3 p.m. on March 10, 2004.

A post of the president's aide responsible for non-government organizations (NGOs) and foreign missions has been introduced into the government of South Osetia.

A two-day seminar arranged by the Norwegian Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies with the assistance of the Russian-British Center for Peacemaking and Community Development will be conducted at the Andrey Sakharov Museum and Public Center on March 11-12.

Akhmed Mazmanov of the International Society of Meskhetian Turks "Vatan" made a report within a framework of the thematic discussion on the state of non-citizens at the 64th session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva on March 1.

First three numbers of the rights catalogue-digest published by the regional branch of the Russian Memorial Society were presented to the public during a round table discussion held by the Krasnodar Club of Civil Education of the Krasnodar Regional NGO Creative Union "Southern Wave".

About 200 students from the Department of Medicine of the Chechen State University staged a demonstration in front of the building of the Chechen government in Grozny. Participants demanded that their classmate, Aslambek Khambiyev, be freed.

Mulkoyev and Alkhanov, Chechens abducted in Georgia and transported to Russia, are being held in an investigatory isolation ward of the Federal Security Service in Yessentuki.

The Azerbaijan Popular Front Party also laid strictures on the attempt by Azerbaijan authorities to prejudice the objectivity of the report by the Department of State. The Party called upon the authorities to give up the actions aimed at "oppressing democratic values."