News

The son of the first President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia and oppositional politician Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, who had been arrested on suspicion of espionage for Russia and attempt of coup d'etat, is now at large on bail worth 20,000 laris (over 14,000 US dollars).

On October 23, the European Court on Human Rights considered the case "Magomed Musaev et al versus Russia" on disappearance of three residents of Chechnya: Said-Rakhman Musaev, Odes Mityaev and Magomed Magomadov, and found that the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was breached in relation of these persons.

The Svetloyar District Court of Volgograd has passed a verdict of guilty to two employees of the Svetloyar ROVD. The former district militiaman Shamil Bolatkhanov and militiaman of the patrol service platoon Sergey Kabdulov were found guilty of beating, when on duty in February and March 2005, citizens, trying to knock confessions of committing crimes out of them.

The information that among the citizens kidnapped on October 23 in Ordzhonikidzevskaya village, Sunzha District of Ingushetia, there could be three Chechen militiamen was not confirmed.

On October 20, Paris hosted another consultation round between Russian human rights activists and EU representatives. The former had noted the fact of activation of armed underground in Northern Caucasus in reply to tortures, extrajudicial executions and preventive violence exercised by power agents.

On October 27, representatives of the Baku OSCE office, US, French and Norwegian embassies and local human rights organizations paid a visit to Colony No. 14 to meet the convicted satirist of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) newspaper Mirza Sakit (Sakit Zakhidov).

Armen Arutyunyan, Ombudsman in Armenia, gave his consent to take part in the work of the newly created group, the mission of which will be to collect on the events of March 1 in Yerevan. The Ombudsman has motivated this decision by saying that the work of the group will have more positive than negative aspects.

Russian and Georgian experts believe that recurrence of August events is possible in Georgia in near future.

Sergey Shamba, Abkhazian Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent a letter to Zhang Esui, Chairman of the UN Security Council, because of the aggravation of the situation in the Abkhazian Gali District, which borders on Georgia.

Today, under the All-Russian action "Day of People's Anger", Sochi has held a rally "In defence of Sochi residents-victims of lawlessness, arbitrariness, corruption of city officials, judges and MIA workers". The event participants have founded the Union of Imereti Valley Residents.

Quite a number of Russian regions were planning to hold social protest actions on October 25 within the agenda of the All-Russian "Day of People's Anger". In particular, the action was held today in the cities of Astrakhan, Krasnodar and Sochi.

Today, President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili has convoked an emergency sitting of the National Security Council in the context of the armed incident in the Tsalendzhikh District in the West of Georgia where Giya Meboniya, head of the local administration, was lost.

President of Dagestan Mukhu Aliev has confirmed at the press conference in Makhachkala the intention of Russian senator from Dagestan, businessman-billionaire Suleiman Kerimov to the Dagestan football club "Anzhi".

Specialists of the Ministry of Emergencies (MoE) of Chechnya believe that the territory of the Republic will not experience any more strong earthquakes with large-scale destructions like it was in Chechnya on October 11.

Today, Nagorno-Karabakh was the venue of exercises in tactics with field firing with participation of all types of fighting equipment. Presidents of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Serzh Sarkisyan and Bako Saakyan watched the event.

In Moscow at night on October 25 Muslim Magomaev, an outstanding singer from Azerbaijan and master of Soviet variety art died in his 67th year from a sudden heart arrest.

An exhibition of original works of Salvador Dali is on at the Rostov local lore regional museum. This is a new project of Russian collector Alexander Shadrin from Ekaterinburg.

The "Caucasian Knot" was involved into participation in the action entitled "President of the Chechen Republic as Mirrored by Media" and was awarded the "Black Galosh", having failed to score enough "positive materials on the activities of the leadership of the Chechen Republic."

In the evening on October 22, following the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Azerbaijan, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) expressed its disappointment with the statement of the EU Presidency on the presidential election in the country held on October 15.

The Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of Russia has finished the investigation and sent to the court the criminal case on the murder of Magomed Evloev, owner of the oppositional website "Ingushetia.Ru" (now "Ingushetia.Org").