News

On March 4, the Promyshlenny Court of North Ossetia postponed the hearing on the complaint of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan" against the actions of the investigatory group of the State Office of Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation till March 11.

Fifty percent of the victims of political repressions who live now in the Stavropol Territory are positively treating Joseph Stalin, since today they live worse than under Stalin's rule, Claudia Podrez, chair of the Stavropol Regional public organization of invalids-victims of political repressions, said.

On March 4, two suspects of murdering Farid Babaev, leader of the Dagestan branch of the "Yabloko" Party, were brought the Tyumen Region of Russia to Dagestan.

Many of the important witnesses of the mass falsifications undertaken during the election on February 19 are now under arrest, and it hampers to studying the case in the court.

At today's session of the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria on the case of the attack on Nalchik, one of the defendants, Zaur Tokhov, has stated that the workers of the SIZO had tried to strangle him, and named these workers.

The members of the oppositional United National Board held an extraordinary briefing in the Office of the People's Party and announced that a new wave of protests would be launched at the Parliament of Georgia at 2:00 p.m. on March 9.

On March 3, President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh received a group of Abkhazian journalists who had addressed him with a demand to release the Georgian journalists detained by the employees of the Republic's State Security Service on February 26.

The Council of Europe is highly concerned with mass disorders in Armenia and calls on the authorities to investigate the deaths of people at night on March 2. This is the topic of the statement made by Terry Davis, Secretary General of Council of Europe.

On March 3, President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan received Peter Semneby, Special Representative of the European Union for South Caucasus. During the meeting, they discussed the post-election processes in Armenia, in particular, the situation in Yerevan and possible ways out of it.

At night on February 26, in the village of Ignatovka, Mainovskiy District, Ulyanovsk Region, two villagers committed a murder of a Gipsy aged 24 and his daughter of 18 months. On February 26, the killers were detained, and they pled guilty. However, three days later one of them was released.

The Parliament of South Ossetia has addressed the UN Secretary General, the President, Council of the Federation and State Duma of Russia, as well as the heads of the CIS states and parliaments and EU countries with a request to recognize the independence of the Republic of South Ossetia.

Today, Nizam Radzhabov, senior assistant for public relations of the head of the Investigatory Department for Dagestan of the Investigatory Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, has officially confirmed the fact of detention of the persons suspected of murdering Farid Babaev, leader of the Dagestan Branch of the "Yabloko" Party.

On March 12 in Ingushetia, leaders of the opposition plan to bring their supporters to a new rally in protest against corruption in power bodies and violations of human rights in the Republic.

Committee to Protect Journalists: Armenian authorities should immediately lift restrictions on independent news reporting and the censorship of independent news Web sites, steps imposed when President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The voter turnout at presidential election in Ingushetia made 92.3%. This was reported by Mussa Evloev, head of the Central Electoral Commission of Ingushetia, during a videoconference with the information centre of CEC of Russia "Election-2008".

In Chechnya, Dmitri Medvedev, the official "successor" of Vladimir Putin, was a confident winner of the presidential election.

On March 2, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent visited three polling stations of Volgograd and talked to voters. Many respondents said that they had voted for Dmitri Medvedev, for having no other choice.

The General Prosecutor's Office of Armenia has identified the personalities of all the eight victims in the clashes between supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the police and OMON on March 1 in Yerevan.

The State Office of Public Prosecutor of Armenia has informed that Levon Ter-Petrosyan, ex-candidate for the president and leader of the opposition, is a figurant in the case about mass disorders in Yerevan on March 1.

Today in the morning, in front of the Galskiy UN Office, a protest rally was held by relatives of David Sigua, a citizen of Abkhazia and head of the local electoral commission who was kidnapped on February 3, 2007, by Georgian special agencies.