News

Many residents of the republic hold that recently, Kadyrov's people have been actively introducing the practice to take relatives of Chechen commanders hostages compelling those commanders to "voluntarily give themselves up" for the sake of saving their close people's lives.

The 2004 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) ceremony is to take place in Geneva on April 7. This year's MEA goes to Lida Yusupova, head of the Grozny Office of the Human Rights Center Memorial.

"I am convinced there will be no large-scale military operations in the zone of the Karabakh conflict. People in Azerbaijan are not so silly to forget about the military potential of our country," coordinator of the Karabakh NGO Helsinki Initiative - 92 Karen Ogandzhanian said in his interview with the new newspaper Demo published in Stepanakert.

Over 50 followers of the first Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who have been opposing to the power of ex-president Eduard Shevardnadze and hiding in forests in the Samgrelo region (Western Georgia) for the last 12 years, laid down arms and returned to peaceful life in Tsalendjikha on April 4.

The press services of the regional interior department and the Federal Security Service (FSB) report that in the course of the operation to reveal illegal migrants, places have been established where many people breaking the rules of residence in Russia live.

Over 10 students at the Ingush State University who participated in a meeting at the Government House in Magas recently, have been reprimanded by the university administration. The Caucasian Knot correspondent learnt it from one of the university students.

As reported by the Krasnodar regional NGO Creative Union "Southern Wave", the subject of the discussion will be "Civil Education as a Way to Pubic Policy".

An explosive device was set off on the federal route Kavkaz when the president's car was moving to Magas. Murat Zyazikov did not suffer.

The NGO activists assert the 2002-2003 Kutaisi city budget was worked out incorrectly and budget funds were not spent for the purpose.

Outstanding human rights activist Elena Boner, widow of Academician Andrey Sakharov, holds Vladimir Putin is in fault for the Chechen war on the Russian part, and Akhmat Kadyrov is in fault for it on the Chechen part.

"We will not allow human rights in Adjaria to be trampled underfoot because somebody there wants to preserve his material status and monopoly", said the Georgian president.

Federal forces and the Chechen president's security service carried out several special operations in the mountains and the forests to arrest members of bandit formations who were preparing large-scale terrorist attacks both in and outside of Chechnya.

Former hostages and relatives of victims of the 2002 hostage crisis at the Dubrovka theater in Moscow will file a plea with the city prosecutor's office on Monday for opening a criminal case on the city government financial department's refusal to carry out a Tverskoy court ruling on the payment of compensation to them, announced their lawyer Igor Trunov.

According to the press secretary of the opposition bloc Justice, Ruzanna Hatchatrian, more than 10 members of opposition parties were arrested in the evening of April 4 and in the morning of April 5 in Yerevan and surrounding regions.

Achishvili, Muskhanov and the Chalayev brothers, members of illegal armed groups who are now in custody, committed several acts of terrorism against federal servicemen.

Participants passed the organization's charter again and adopted the program of its further activity.

On April 2, the Azerbaijan Court for Grave Crimes put imam of Baku's Juma Mosque Ilgar Allakhverdiev (Ibragimoglu) on probation for five years.

Main efforts of the agencies engaged in problems of the return of IDPs [internally displaced persons] to Chechnya have been aimed at the liquidation of the Satsita tent camp since 2 April.

Gelayev's relatives have made three unsuccessful attempts to take his body from the morgue of a hospital in Rostov.

The capacity of each of the explosive assemblies was about 40 kilograms of trotyl equivalent, the officer of the republican interior ministry said.