News

The ceremony to present the 2003 Symbol of Freedom, a sign of public recognition instituted in the field of human rights, will be held at the Marble Hall of the House of Journalists in Moscow on February 17.

The Antiwar Club and Committee for Antiwar Actions have issued a statement in which they called upon everybody to "join the actions aimed at the cessation of war in Chechnya, establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration in Chechnya and political settlement of the conflict" on 23 February, the day of memory of people fallen victims to Stalin's deportation.

120 families of displaced persons returned to the places of their former residence on the territory of North Osetia for 12 months of 2003, according to the data by the Ingush State Committee on Refugees and Displaced Persons.

A volunteer for the interregional NGO Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship, Alkhazur Batayev, was detained in the tent camp for Chechen refugees "Satsita" by officers of Ingushetia's Sunzhensky district police department on February 10.

FSB (Federal Security Service) officers wage a fierce struggle against songs by Chechen singers in Ingushetia. It is prohibited to sale cassettes with songs by Timur Mutsurayev, Khas-Magomed Khadzhimuradov and Islam Alimsultanov in the republic.

Director of the Scientific Research Institute of the Caucasus Professor Nikolay Avdulov called this day a holiday of wisdom, good and education.

"It is essential that we stop concentrating our attention on setting 10-15 political prisoners free. It is time to switch over to the solution of really urgent problems of the country's population," said Tamilla Kerimova, a member of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly National Committee of Azerbaijan.

Action participants demanded that the arrested editor-in-chief of the opposition Yeni Musavat newspaper, Rauf Arifoglu, and a contributor of the Baki Khabar newspaper, Sadig Ismailov, be released.

On 6 February, the European Parliament member, Olivier Dupuis, issued a statement in reply to the accusation by Russian President Putin against the Maskhadov administration.

According to the chairwoman of the presidential commission on human rights, unidentified people have threatened refugees with FSB (Federal Security Service) if they refuse to leave tent camps within two weeks.

An American journalist presumed missing in the North Caucasian region of Russia for three days was seen "alive and kicking" on Wednesday morning.

The United Nations has told the Kremlin not to expect any increase in its or other aid agency staff in Chechnya until a kidnapped Dutch aid worker has been released.

During the six years since the abolition of capital punishment, at least 30 inmates serving life sentences and four prisoners sentenced to death who were subsequently amnestied, died, i.e. nearly every fourth.

"People of different nationalities serve in the Abkhazian Armed Forces, and Georgians do to. But no one of them have been oppressed and even more so subjected to torture because of their nationality," reads a press release by the Ministry of Defense.

In no more than an hour after the detention, the military tried to deny the fact itself that the young men were taken into custody. However there were witnesses who saw the detainees being conveyed to the territory of the former farm.

The book "Human Rights Monitoring" was presented by Saida Godjamanly, director of the Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, at the office of the Bureau on February 9.

Abkhazian State Security Service Chairman Givi Agrba holds that the Georgian party committed a gross violation of the Moscow Ceasefire Agreement of 14 May 1994.

Representatives of the Danish Refugee Council explained to the displaced persons that they took such a step because they feared they would be likely denied access to refugee camps in the near future.

Several locals were reportedly detained in the course of the "purge".

Commissioner for Human Rights in the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia Vladimir Titarenko took the oath at a session of the republican National Assembly.