News

The delegates of the extraordinary Congress of Ingush Nation, who represent the country's civil society, have addressed President Vladimir Putin and First Vice-Premier Dmitri Medvedev with a question: "Until when will Murat Zyazikov's clique of bureaucrats execute their arbitrariness in Ingushetia?"

President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan has partially cancelled the state of emergency. Five opposition parties and public organizations are returned the right to act. The President has also ordered to seek other legal grounds for operation of mass media.

Today, the Service of National Security of Armenia has arrested Alexander Arzumanyan, head of the election office of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ararat Zurabyan, one of the members of the election office and chairman of the Armenian All-National Movement.

Charges of taking part in mass disorders in Yerevan, during which eight persons were lost, have been presented to 59 persons by the Prosecutor's Office of Armenia.

Today, Giorgi Tsagareishvili, one of the leaders of the opposition and representative of the Movement for United Georgia, where Irakliy Okruashvili, ex-Minister of Defence of Georgia, is the leader, has joined the hunger strike held in front of the Parliament of Georgia. Now, there are about 15 persons holding a protest hunger strike at the building of the Parliament.

Tonight at 7:45 p.m. local time, the Constitutional Court of Armenia announced its verdict on the suit lodged by two presidential candidates - Tigran Karapetyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan - on recognition of the outcomes of the presidential election held on February 19 null and void.

Additional forces of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and armoured vehicles have been deployed in the city of Nazran (Ingushetia).

Today, in Nalchik at the Memorial to Victims of Repressions against Balkar People, a public rally was organized in memory of the victims of mass deportation of Balkars in 1943.

On the day of the third anniversary of the death of Aslan Maskhadov the participants of the Movement against War in Northern Caucasus have addressed Patriarch Alexis II for assistance in giving out of the remains of the former President of Chechnya to his relatives.

According to the latest data of the State Office of Public Prosecutor of Armenia, 125 persons were brought to police stations during the disorders on March 1, of them 46 persons were indicted and arrested, and 20 more are detained and wait for indictments to be presented to them within three days.

The Coalition of Nongovernmental Organizations of Georgia has passed a petition in support of the Armenian people and condemned repressions against supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan in Armenia.

The Dagestan Republic's Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) has declared that in Dagestan, the observers of the Party registered rough and mass distortions of the will of the voters during the presidential election.

Today in Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan had a meeting with John Prescott, chairman of the temporary commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is now in Yerevan.

Today the Yasamal District Court of Baku has sentenced Ganimat Zakhidov, editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani oppositional newspaper "Azadlyg", to four years of deprivation of freedom on charges of "hooliganism and causing damage to the health of a human."

Today, the Parliament of Abkhazia has passed two appeals with a demand to recognize the state independence of the Republic of Abkhazia.

On March 4, a verdict was passed in Krasnodar to former troopers who beat Turkish construction workers.

On March 5, in the district of Los Angeles known as "Small Armenia", several thousands protesters rallied to voice against the violence applied to peaceful demonstrators in Yerevan on March 1.

Today at 11:30 a.m. Moscow time, the Service of State Security of Abkhazia released two Georgian journalists of the TV Company "Mze" Malkhaz Basilaya and David Tsotsoriya and handed them over to employees of the UN Office for Human Rights.

The Human Rights Centre "Memorial" is concerned with detention of human rights activist Mikhail Kriger, coordinator of the Anti-War Club, who was a regular participant of pickets against the policy of the Kremlin in Northern Caucasus and the war in Chechnya, in particular.

As of the present moment, 132 activists of the opposition have been arrested in Armenia; they were charges under a number of Articles of the Criminal Code.