News

On January 29, the head and members of the North Caucasian office of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship who made arrangements for a visit of Chairwoman of the Russian President's Commission on Human Rights Ella Pamfilova to refugee camps were detained in the outskirts of the Ordzhonikidzevskaya village, Ingushetia.

A group of Russian human rights defenders, headed by Chairwoman of the Russian President's Commission on Human Rights Ella Pamfilova, arrived in the North Caucasus for a working visit on January 29.

On January 27, the UN delegation headed by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland visited the camp of Chechen refugees Satsita, situated on the outskirts of the Ordzhonikidzevskaya village in Ingushetia.

On January 28, the press service of the Abkhazian President spread an official statement by Vladislav Ardzinba. It is noted in the statement that recently, against the background of the change of power in Georgia, Georgian leaders has repeatedly made statements that raise doubt about Tbilisi's adherence to peaceful settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict and its international legal obligations.

"If anything, the non-violent Rose Revolution served as a message to the world - that all Georgians aspire to build and live in a democratic, independent and stable state," he said, addressing the 26-30 January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

According to the data of the Association of Young Lawyers and Political Scientists, the activist of the organization was abducted by Gena Ashkhartsava, who leads a 30-strong group operating in the Gali district.

Editor-in-chief of PRIMA News Agency Alexander Podrabinek was told when he was questioned by FSB (Federal Security Service) on January 28 that criminal proceedings had been instituted in connection with disclosure of state secret in the books "FSB Blows Up Russia" and "LCG - Lubyanka Criminal Group."

Highlands and woodlands lying on the border between Chechnya's Achkhoy-Martan and Urus-Martan districts were battered on the night of January 27-28.

Last year a group of members of the European Parliament awarded the "Passport for Freedom" to Akhmed Zakayev, Minister of Culture in the Chechen government of President Maskhadov, shortly after the Danish authorities had rejected the application for extradition made by the Russian Federation.

Sad results of the incident that took place in the district center of Shali on January 20 are being reckoned in Chechnya. Then the northwestern outskirts of the town were shelled with missiles from a helicopter.

Khamzat Osmayev, the known Chechen doctor and body-builder abducted from his consulting room in the village of Pliyevo on January 12, was found in Ingushetia's Sunzhensky district.

Aleksandr Zhabsky, the Volgodonsk journalist who went on hunger strike almost a month ago, is not able to get out of bed now.

Specialists hold that the total sums of payments by insurance companies in Turkey will likely run up to hundreds of milliards of dollars.

People who want to print and distribute the seditious books "FSB Blows Up Russia" (see also here) and "LCG ? Lubyanka Criminal Group" on the territory of the Russian Federation can do it freely, without being afraid to infringe upon authors' rights, the Foundation for Civil Liberties announced yesterday.

Avto Beridze told journalists that first he had been threatened and then he had been offered a good job and privileges as a way of gaining him over.

The ruling circles in Azerbaijan are incensed over the report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights organization, on the human rights situation in the country.

Speaking about the Georgian foreign policy, Mr Saakashvili declared, "Georgia will be neither pro-Russian nor pro-American. It will be pro-Georgian and European."

The open letter reads, "I would obviously be very glad to be able to meet you to discuss whether, and in what way, you can contribute to restore hope to the Chechens and dignity to Europe, with respect, at least, to more specifically humanitarian questions."

"There have been no incidents in which Russian peacekeeping units incurred losses in Abkhazia's Gali district," the ministry's press service reported.

"Ecological conditions in Chechnya today are very bad, which is a result of the hostilities," Aleksandr Cherkasov, an activist of the Human Rights Center "Memorial", said in Strasbourg.