News

On March 17, chief of the Georgian State Security Ministry's investigatory department Mr Gviniashvili announced they had no evidence of Dudayev's involvement in the terrorist act. Nevertheless Marek Dudayev is still in the hands of the Georgian law-enforcement agencies.

As expected, the escalation of tensions between Batumi and Tbilisi has not eased.

The Adjarian leader insists that the period for the preliminary voter registration before the parliamentary elections of March 28 be extended.

The action for refugees' return to the "zone closed for the Ingushetians" is conducted under the aegis of the Office of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Resolution of the Osetian-Ingush Conflict.

Mothers of captive Taliban fighters extradited from the Guantanamo base, the US, to their native land turned for help to the sub-delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Northern Caucasus on March 18, asking to visit their imprisoned sons in Pyatigorsk, where they are being held. They said their sons were subjected to beatings there.

A group of Osetins living in the Akhmetsky district of Georgia arrived in South Osetia on March 18 to meet with authorities there.

There are three priority areas to be financed under the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) microprojects programme: support to the rule of law and the fight against corruption; the fight against torture; and combating discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities.

Unknown people shot down Chersi Gatayev, deputy chief of the Achkhoy-Martan district police department, and his driver on March 19.

"1,654 residents of the Chechen Republic have got compensations for lost housing and property for the last six months. Another 4 thousand people are expected to get compensations till the end of March," chairman of the Chechen governmental committee for compensation payments and displaced persons Abubakar Baybatirov said in his interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent on March 20.

During his visit, which will last till March 27, Heikki Talvitie will meet with the Armenian political leadership.

On March 19, five contributors to the Yeni Musavat newspaper suspended the hunger strike they had started on March 15. "The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Rauf Arifoglu, who is held in Bailovsky Investigatory Isolation Ward No 1, addressed an appeal to the hunger strikers, asking them to stop it," reported Yeni Musavat deputy editor-in-chief Gabil Abbasoglu.

The founders see the main task of the organization in providing moral, legal and financial assistance to displaced persons and socially vulnerable residents of the Stavropol region.

An antiwar picket banned by the authorities was held on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow on March 18, at 5:30 p.m.

Representatives of unidentified security agencies have abducted and taken away in an unknown direction over 20 residents of Ingushetia since the beginning of the year. On March 19, relatives and friends of abducted and missing people, who have been driven to despair by the unsuccessful search, staged a spontaneous action of protest on the outskirts of Nazran.

Nadyr Aliyev, an Azerbaijan businessman and leader of the Organization of National Unity, has decided to grant a scholarship to Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijan officer who killed his Armenian colleague, Gurgen Margarian, in Budapest on February 19, 2004.

On March 15, the trial in the case of Artashes Bakhshian, a member of the Armenian State Commission on Protection of Economic Competition, versus the Business Express weekly started at the court of first instance of Yerevan's Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun Communes.

On March 17, officers of Akhmad Kadyrov's security service opened fire in the center of Grozny, near the Fashion House. Two people - a teenager and a woman - who turned out to be near the scene were killed as a result.

The secretary of the North Osetian regional branch of the Russian Communist Party (KPRF) and envoy of Communist presidential contender Nikolay Kharitonov, Nataliya Mikhaylenko, told in her telephone interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent that the March 14 presidential election in North Osetia had bee held with gross violations.

Timur Yandiyev, 25, was abducted at 5 p.m. on March 16 in the center of Nazran, Ingushetia. According to eyewitnesses, unknown armed men forcibly bundled Yandiyev into a white Niva car as he was leaving the building of Ingushenergo Company and drove off to an unknown destination.

The hunger strikers are protesting against the pressure on the Yeni Musavat, appearing in demands to pay court fines, the total sum of which comes to 733 million manats (about $150 thousand), reminded Gabil Abbasoglu, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper.