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"It is essential that we stop concentrating our attention on setting 10-15 political prisoners free. It is time to switch over to the solution of really urgent problems of the country's population," said Tamilla Kerimova, a member of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly National Committee of Azerbaijan.

Action participants demanded that the arrested editor-in-chief of the opposition Yeni Musavat newspaper, Rauf Arifoglu, and a contributor of the Baki Khabar newspaper, Sadig Ismailov, be released.

On 6 February, the European Parliament member, Olivier Dupuis, issued a statement in reply to the accusation by Russian President Putin against the Maskhadov administration.

According to the chairwoman of the presidential commission on human rights, unidentified people have threatened refugees with FSB (Federal Security Service) if they refuse to leave tent camps within two weeks.

An American journalist presumed missing in the North Caucasian region of Russia for three days was seen "alive and kicking" on Wednesday morning.

The United Nations has told the Kremlin not to expect any increase in its or other aid agency staff in Chechnya until a kidnapped Dutch aid worker has been released.

During the six years since the abolition of capital punishment, at least 30 inmates serving life sentences and four prisoners sentenced to death who were subsequently amnestied, died, i.e. nearly every fourth.

"People of different nationalities serve in the Abkhazian Armed Forces, and Georgians do to. But no one of them have been oppressed and even more so subjected to torture because of their nationality," reads a press release by the Ministry of Defense.

In no more than an hour after the detention, the military tried to deny the fact itself that the young men were taken into custody. However there were witnesses who saw the detainees being conveyed to the territory of the former farm.

The book "Human Rights Monitoring" was presented by Saida Godjamanly, director of the Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, at the office of the Bureau on February 9.

Abkhazian State Security Service Chairman Givi Agrba holds that the Georgian party committed a gross violation of the Moscow Ceasefire Agreement of 14 May 1994.

Representatives of the Danish Refugee Council explained to the displaced persons that they took such a step because they feared they would be likely denied access to refugee camps in the near future.

Several locals were reportedly detained in the course of the "purge".

Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia Vladimir Titarenko took the oath at a session of the republican National Assembly.

The press release on the occasion reads that the draft suggests increasing pressure on Russia in such issues as human rights, a situation in Chechnya, media freedom, and cooperation in the cause of preservation of the environment.

A journalist's disappearance has been reported by the consul of the US Embassy. He turned to the Moscow police asking for help overnight.

Russian President's Commission on Human Rights is preparing materials on the problems of people displaced from the Chechen Republic to Ingushetia and will hand these documents over to the President.

Greenpeace Russia won in the Russian Supreme Court the suit to abolish the part of the resolution of the Russian Government by which it withdrew 33,222 hectares of land from the Sochi National Park (including 11,000 hectares of land of the reserved zone, where any economic activity is prohibited) and gave it to the Sochi All-Republican National Natural Reserve.

We call your attention to the statement by Nikolay Khramov, secretary of the Russian Radicals movement, member of the Transnational Radical Party General Council, in connection with the 6 February terrorist act in the Moscow metro.

"The Union of Chechen Journalists expresses a stern protest against the informational war started by some Russian politicians through the central media against the Chechen people," reads the statement.