News

Diana Tsipinova, an advocate from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), who has been charged with assaulting a law enforcer, will not be able to work in her profession, if the court finds her guilty. In the past 10 years, cases of persecuting advocates for their professional activities have become more frequent, Tsipinova's colleagues have pointed out.

Murat Baimurziev, a resident of Ingushetia, has fallen victim to a malefactor, who had rented a truck from him and refused to return it. The courts sided with Baimurziev' and law enforcers are protracting the inquiry into the case, Pavel Misharin, an advocate, has informed.

An officer of the prosecutor’s office filed an appeal against the verdict to Diana Tsipinova, an advocate from Kabardino-Balkaria, who was acquitted in a case on an attack on a law enforcer. This was reported by the Human Rights Centre of Kabardino-Balkaria on its Telegram channel with reference to a post of the “Advokatskaya Street”*.

Explosions in Rostov Region, Ingush activists’ case, persecution of pacifists and activists in Southern Russia, blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, persecution of opposition in Azerbaijan, and official data on the natives of Southern Russia who perished in Ukraine, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of July 24-30, 2023, prepared by the “Caucasian Knot”.

A court in Adygea has refused to release a local resident, who complained of torture and beatings at the SIZO (pre-trial prison), under house arrest. Information about torture has not yet been confirmed, the court has explained.

Gennady Pagiev, a resident of the city of Vladikavkaz, has recorded a video appeal from the special military operation (SMO) zone in Ukraine addressed to Sergey Menyailo, the head of North Ossetia, in which he complained that the bank was unreasonably taking away the housing from his wife and children.

In Makhachkala, the journalists Idris Yusupov and Magomed Magomedov have held solo pickets demanding the release of Abdulmumin Gadjiev.

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has upheld the verdict on Major Maxim Bespalov from North Ossetia, who was sentenced to five years and eight months in a penal colony on charges of leaving his military unit without permission.

The court has fined a resident of Makhachkala, finding him guilty of non-informing law enforcement bodies that his acquaintance was participating in hostilities in Syria on the side of the "Islamic State" (IS)*.

Rasul Madagov, an elderly resident of Chechnya, has complained about the policeman who hit him, but investigators found no signs of a crime in policeman's actions and accused Madagov of a false denunciation. The court sentenced Madagov to corrective labour conditionally.

Akhmed Dudaev, the Minister of Press and Information of Chechnya, has publicly reprimanded a local resident named Aslan for reposting unreliable information about the mass deaths of soldiers of the "Sever-Akhmat" regiment near Artyomovsk. Aslan announced his readiness to apologize on television.

The Volgograd Regional Court denied Anton Kuznetsov, a member of a pacifist religious community, the right to alternative civilian service. The young man, who was forcibly sent to a military unit, has been refusing to take up arms and take an oath for more than six months.

The court of appeal cancelled the third acquittal of two natives of Dagestan, accused in a murder of Sergey Saiputdinov, an employee of the “Chernomortransneft”. One of the defendants claimed that law enforcers tortured him, including in Chechnya, in order to force him to confess to the murder.

The court of appeal has upheld the prison terms of Ingush activists, but toughened the conditions for additional punishment, the defendants' advocates have pointed out, promising to file a complaint. The decision of the court was expected, the members of the Council of Teips (Family Clans) of Ingushetia have stated.

Chechen investigators have combined the attack cases on the journalist, Elena Milashina, and the advocate, Alexander Nemov, into one case and significantly expanded the list of articles, by adding, among other things, interfering in the victims' professional activities.

It was decided to close the hippotherapy centre for children with disabilities due to authorities' demand to vacate a part of the site, which belongs to a specially protected area, the head of the centre has explained. There are no more such centres in Makhachkala, the children's parents have complained.

The appellate instance of the Stavropol Territory has upheld the verdicts passed to seven Ingush protest leaders for their actions during the rally in Magas; they were convicted within the case of creating an extremist community. This was announced by the "Memorial" Centre for Human Rights Defence in its Telegram channel.

The first-instance court issued its verdict based on assumptions; while during debates at the appellate court, the prosecutor failed to answer a single defence's question, Malsag Uzhakhov, one of the activists, has noted in his last speech.

A foreign passport was not issued for a young woman from Chechnya due to the requirement of the anti-terrorist commission not to issue foreign passports to persons under the age of 30 without the presence of their older relatives, the Chechen police informed a lawyer of the young woman.

The condition of Ali Bataev, a native of Chechnya, who continues his hunger strike in a deportation centre in Switzerland with the demand not to be deported to Russia, has deteriorated sharply, but he has not succeeded in seeking hospitalization, report members of the “European Peace House” human rights organization.