News

On February 23, after anarchists, antimilitarists and activists of the Ataka (Attack) movement had held an unauthorized picket against the war in Chechnya, some 30 people of the local branch of the Fascist organization Party of Freedom attacked them.

According to Rebecca Santana, Ruslan Sopakhanov, a resident of the Chechen Republic, worked with her for four days as a driver helping her collect information.

On February 23, the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and Ingushetians to Central Asia and West Siberia in 1944, a rally was held at Namesti Miru Square in Prague.

The prosecutor has not yet specified details of the investigation, except saying that members of special forces who presented in the Omega Group office at the time of the incident have already been interrogated.

Russians - mostly Chechens - were easily the top asylum-seeking nationality in 2003, with a total of 33,400 (data from 29 rather than the full 36 industrialized countries), announced the UN refugee agency.

Today, February 25, a press conference of Olivier Dupuis, the Radical Member of the European Parliament, is to be held at the conference hall of the European Parliament.

Congress participants appealed to the Georgian leadership and international organizations to provide the return of Meskhetian Turks to their native lands in Meskhetia, Georgia.

"There is no legal basis for either prohibiting this peaceful meeting or for breaking it up," stated Dr. Rhodes, Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation (IHF).

High-level official statements promising and praising the harshest methods to fight corruption may encourage violations of human rights, Human Rights Watch said.

"Out of thirteen independent broadcasters currently working in Azerbaijan, nine operate in the regions," said Whit Mason, Internews' Country Director in Azerbaijan.

The Executive Committee of the Extraordinary Congress of the People of Kalmykia, founded in January 2003 to remove Kirsan Ilyumzhinov from the Kalmyk presidency, intends to arrange a march to Moscow at the end of February.

The Krasnodar Regional Court has denied the appeal by the Novorossiysk Fund "School of Peace" against the decision of a district court on the liquidation of the Fund.

Unknown people set fire to the regional office of the Christian Democratic Party in the capital of Adjaria, Batumi, on February 22.

The general was quoted as saying "only the presence of the CIS PKF (Peacekeeping Forces) in conflict areas can guarantee security for civilians and facilitate the process of peaceful adjustment between conflict parties."

Altogether 3,851 phone calls were received by Echo Moskvy Radio for 5 minutes of the survey.

Paata Shevarnadze, a son of the Georgian ex-president, denied a number of mass media reports stating that Eduard Shevarnadze received guarantees on his family immunity upon his retirement. He also stated that the Shevarnadze family was a victim to political persecution on behalf of the current authorities.

The leaders of the Russian national organizations For Human Rights and Russian Radicals, Lev Ponomaryov and Nikolai Khramov, have been released from the Kitay-Gorod police station.

He told it in the interview published by Chechen separatists' Internet agency Kavkaz-Center.

Memorial evenings devoted to the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Ingush people are being held in all towns and regions of the republic these days. On February 23, it was 60 years since the day of the deportation of the Ingush people to Kazakhstan.

A special session of the Presidium of the National Assembly of Nagorny Karabakh was held on February 20. It was devoted to the Day of Artsakh's Revival.