News

The last tent was folded there today and the last 137 refugees left the camp for Chechnya.

A week before the elections for the Georgian parliament, South Osetia's parliament passed a resolution on the illegitimacy of this procedure on the territory of the unrecognized republic.

Addressing the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on March 25, US diplomat Douglas Davidson said: "The United States urges Russian federal and local authorities to support voluntary returns to Chechnya and to provide alternative shelter for IDPs [internally displaced persons] who wish to remain in Ingushetia."

Authorities of the Adjarian Autonomous Republic made an attack on the only opposition newspaper Batumtsi, reported the Our Adjaria political movement.

"We send a letter asking the prosecutor's office to provide information on virtually every abduction. They open a criminal case following every abduction. Most of the prosecutor office's replies to our requests say that the kidnappers have not been found," the Memorial spokesman, Dmitry Grushkin, said.

On March 26, Russian soldiers conducted a special operation in the village of Duba-Yurt, Chechnya's Shali district.

Vazha Shengelia was last seen at 2 a.m. on March 30, in the yard of his brother's house. Members of the party assert he was abducted.

A car with two officers of federal security agencies was fired by unknown people from automatic weapons in the 4th microdistrict of Grozny on March 28.

We call your attention to the information statement by the Committee to Protect Rights of Ilgar Ibragimoglu.

"We consider the happening a sequel to the atmosphere of political intolerance that has been seen in the country recently," reads a statement by the Yerevan Press Club, the Union of Armenian Journalists, Internews Armenia, and the Glasnost Defense Foundation.

An unexampled trial has started in Novocherkassk. The one who is standing trial is an organizer of the international criminal group that has been supplying white slaves from Rostov Region to the United Arab Emirates.

Basayev accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ignoring Basayev's earlier call for Russian authorities to observe international law in Chechnya - specifically to end to alleged executions without trial and the disappearance of civilians - in return for an end to Chechen terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia, according to a letter published Tuesday on a rebel Web site.

According to Aslan Abashidze, the decision by the Georgian authorities to conduct preliminary registration of voters led to the reduction in the number of voters in Adjaria.

Only two Georgian political parties, the ruling party National Movement - Democrats and the Right - Industrialists, have obtained enough votes to be represented in parliament, the Central Election Commission announced on Wednesday, March 31.

People came from different districts and towns of the republic. They demand that the authorities should find their relatives and friends abducted by "security officers" recently and should put an end to the arbitrariness of officers of both Russian and local security structures.

Four strangers attacked him when he was going home after a walk with his dog.

As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 30, 1,055,544 ballots have been processed at the computer center, which constitutes two thirds of the total number of voters who took part in the elections.

The Novorossiysk city public charitable organization Frodo, which has been an assignee of the School of Peace fund since February 2004, is carrying out a project to disseminate ideas of tolerance among people of different ages, nationalities, and social status within the framework of the Your World Behind the Window competition.

On March 28, an attack was committed on participants in the weekly picket against the war in Chechnya in Saint Petersburg.

1,618 signatures under the appeal For an Interim United Nations Administration in Chechnya were collected and handed over to the leaders of the Russian Radicals movement by March 28, reported the human rights organization Sintar.