News

Servicemen of the CIS Peacekeeping Forces (PKF) in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict did not take part in the incident that occurred in the Tsalendjikha district at about 1:30 Moscow time on January 27. This was reported at the CIS PKF headquarters.

"We believe the Council of Europe's assessment of the election and post-election situation in Azerbaijan is objective and it will decide on the establishment of an independent international commission to investigate the presidential election in Azerbaijan," reads the appeal.

At a weekly conference, Prime Minister of Abkhazia Raul Khadzhimba urged upon heads of security agencies and the foreign ministry "to react to all the attacks by Georgian authorities against Abkhazia in time."

A local Khamzayev and his near relation were captured by gunmen in masks and camouflage in the village of Berkat-Yurt, Chechnya's Grozny (rural) district, on January 25.

The bomb was detonated via a distance-control device under an armored vehicle carrying interior troops.

Poligrafkombinat Company in Nazran refused to print a regular number of the Chechen Society newspaper. The director of the printing house, Suleiman Kostoev, motivated his refusal by saying that the newspaper raised the topic of possible unification of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Since the moment of the Society's creation in April 2000, Imran Ezhiev has been arbitrary detained and held in custody by Russian security agencies many times.

"The Society rates the abduction and murder of Aslan Davletukayev as another act of state terror against people of the Chechen Republic and as another episode in the chain of physical extermination of political and ideological opponents by the regime," reads the statement made by the organization on the occasion of the murder of Aslan Davletukayev.

Witnesses say the abductors bear relation to security structures and Kadyrov's security service.

According to Mr Ilyasov, only 5 thousand displaced persons live in three tent camps and "nobody forces them to return to Chechnya."

The exchange of fire stopped only after an armored carrier with Russian peacekeepers had arrived at the clash site.

We call your attention to the statement by Olivier Dupuis in which he explains the reasons of his hunger strike.

The US Secretary of State also noted the United States hoped that Russia would find a political solution to the problem of terrorism with due account taken for human rights.

In January 2004, an initiative group of Yekaterinburg people is carrying out an action of protest against human rights violations during the war in Chechnya.

In the course of the Migrant operation, administrative proceedings were instituted against 13 thousand people - 6 thousand of them are foreign citizens - for violations of the passport and visa regulations.

In Vladikavkaz, the chairwoman of the Council of Non-Government Organizations, Zuleykhan Bagalova, and members of the Public Council for Refugees had a meeting with a representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the North Caucasus, William Tall.

A constituent meeting of the Committee to Protect Rights of Rauf Arifoglu, editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat arrested on October 27 in connection with the October 15 and 16 events, was held at the International Press Club on January 22.

"They were detained in the course of investigation of the abduction and robbery of two inhabitants of the Kargalinovskaya Cossack village in the Shelkovskaya district," Chechen Interior Ministry officials said.

Adversaries of the forum lay strictures on the Swedish Government because representatives of the Palestinians, Chechens and Kurds have not been invited to take part in it.

Four servicemen were killed and another four were injured as a result of the explosion.