News

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has approved the decision of the city administration of Grozny on removal of the complex in memory of victims of the 1944 deportation from the central part of city to a suburb and stated that the monument to the victims of repressions should be grandiose.

The victims of the explosion of an apartment house in the Guryanova Street in 1999 in Moscow demand from Dmitri Medvedev, the new president of Russia, to initiate an independent investigation, explaining that the case has many suspicious circumstances and "facts hidden under the table cloth."

Today, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan has adopted amendments and additions to the national Electoral Code. The changes were brought in by President Ilham Aliev in the form of his legislative initiative.

The statement of journalists of Georgia with a demand to reinstate former managers of the "Imedi" Radio Station in their previous positions was disseminated in all media after Nona Kandiashvili, Broadcasting Director of the "Imedi", and Irakliy Khetereli, Director General, were dismissed on May 30, 2008.

The UNEP - United Nations Environment Programme - has supported the appeals of the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace of Russia to remove the sledge and bobsleigh complex and the Olympic Village to be erected for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics from the Grushevoy Ridge to some alternative locations.

Three citizens of Azerbaijan were hospitalized with traumas and knife wounds after a fight with the natives of Dagestan in the Nevskiy District of St-Petersburg.

A battalion of railway troops of Russia has arrived to Abkhazia with a mission to repair the railway section running from Sukhum to Ochamchira in the east of Abkhazia. The battalion is equipped with all the necessary machinery for the aim of the mission.

The US Government plans to provide about 700,000 dollars for structural development of the GUAM - the economic-political association of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

According to Georgiy Chkheidze, Chairman of the NGO named "Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia" (AYLG), the parliamentary elections in Georgia were more democratic than the presidential one: this time, more attention was given to observers' complaints.

The Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour of the US Department of State has published its annual report on the status with human rights and democracy in the world. The chapter on Azerbaijan runs that support of human rights there remains bad and has aggravated in certain areas.

The protest hunger strike initiated on May 27 by ex-combatants and members of the "Republic" Party is held for the fifth day already near the chapel of the "Erablur" military pantheon in Yerevan. The participants of the action demand to release all the political prisoners in fulfilment of the PACE's Resolution No. 1609 in relation to Armenia.

Head of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Grozny Shakhman Akbulatov has stated, while making his comments on the May 29 decision of the European Court for Human Rights obliging Russia to pay out money compensation to five residents of Chechnya, that Russia fails to completely fulfil the decisions of the European Court.

Amiran Iobashvili, a member of the Party "Movement for United Georgia", was beaten in the morning near his house by five person in masks armed with truncheons. Earlier, at night, two members of the block "United Opposition: National Council - Right-Wingers" and the Republican Party were beaten in Tbilisi and Gori.

Today, the Khilok District Court of the Transbaikalian Territory has announced a verdict on the criminal case against 32 local residents accused of attacking in May 2006 families of Azerbaijani natives in the village of Kharagun, where 11 persons suffered and one perished.

In Ingushetia, Vakha Evloev, cousin of the ex-president of Ingushetia Ruslan Aushev, was heavily wounded. His car was shelled in the Surkhakhi village. Mr Evloev with gunshot wounds was delivered to the central hospital of Nazran in a critical condition.

Bulgaria has stopped a criminal group suspected of financing militants in Chechnya.

Thirteen NGOs and human rights organizations of Armenia have disseminated a statement demanding to hold an objective investigation of the attack on the head of the Youth Movement "It Has Begun" Arsen Kharatyan and to punish the criminals.

On May 29, the organization for preservation of Tbilisi named "Tbilisi Amkari" held a preventive protest action with posters "SOS Tbilisi", standing against dismantling historical buildings in the centre of the Georgian capital.

Today, in the Leninskiy District of the capital of Chechnya, building workers have started dismantling the memorial complex erected in Grozny during Dzhokhar Dudaev's rule in memory of the victims of mass deportation of Chechens undertaken in February 1944.

The authorities of Armenia have made "imperceptible" steps to enforce PACE's Resolution No. 1609 dealing with the freedom of democratic institutes in the country. This conclusion was made at the recent session of the PACE's Monitoring Commission held in Kiev.