News

In Makhachkala, relatives of three residents of Derbent, arrested in a case on terrorism, held a series of pickets with the demand to punish law enforcers for the use of torture. Passers-by expressed their support to the protesters.

The police launch an investigation into the circumstances of the incident, as a result of which two natives of Northern Caucasus who danced Lezginka in a street in Krasnodar were beaten by a group of people, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) reported after a video of the incident had been posted on social media platforms.

Today, residents of Gyumri have blocked the entrance to the building of the Shirak regional administration. The protestors demand from the authorities to announce the dates for the return of their relatives from captivity.

Yesterday, the Sumgait Court of Appeal (CoA) upheld the ruling to arrest Elmir Abbasov, a member of the "Nida" movement, accused of illegal storage and use of drug. Oppositionists have linked his arrest with his criticism of the country's president.

Overall 45 militants were killed by law enforcers in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) in 2020; other 113 members armed groupings were detained, Yuri Chaika, the Russian President's envoy to the NCFD, has reported.

Law enforcers have detained Akhru Avidzba, an assistant to President of Abkhazia, and brought him for questioning to the Security Service (SS). Avidzba's relatives have gathered outside the SS' building waiting for his release.

At their action in Stepanakert, refugees from the districts of Nagorno-Karabakh, which came under Azerbaijan's control after the war, demanded to start peaceful talks on the transfer of the lost territories to the Armenian party and refugees' return to their homes.

A series of investigations conducted by the "Bellingcat" jointly with other media partners have established that the person accused of Khangoshvili's murder had passports on two different names. This suggests that he had collaborated with Russian special services, a classified witness said in court.

After the Kremlin's restrained reaction to the inquiry by the "Mediazona" and "Scanner Project" into the murder of Boris Nemtsov, Ramzan Kadyrov has sharply criticized the journalists for their conclusions, suggesting them to "work out" not the Chechen, but the Ukrainian trace in the murder of the oppositionist.

The prosecutor's office demanded conditional imprisonment for Martin Kochesoko, because the charge has collapsed; but the court fulfilled a political order and refused to acquit the Circassian activist, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"* believes.

On March 3, the Supreme Court of Chechnya upheld the verdict in a case on drug possession against Instagram blogger Malika Djikaeva from North Ossetia, her advocate reports today.

Based on a teenager's testimony and a PC desktop, the law enforcement bodies accused a Volgograd schoolboy of plotting a murder, and in the absence of real evidence, they secured that the boy had been declared insane. This was reported in a new article prepared by Ilya Azar and posted by the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta".

The materials of the journalistic investigation into the murder of Boris Nemtsov are available to the law enforcement bodies, and they will pay attention to the publication if it contains new information, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for the President of Russia, suggests.

Former Armenian military personnel plan to hold on March 6 a rally against the resignation of Onik Gasparyan, the chief of the General Headquarters of the Armenia's Armed Forces. The military activists call on veterans to come to the rally.

The Investigative Committee of Armenia charged Vazgen Manukyan, a candidate for prime minister from the Armenian opposition, for calling to overthrow the government and then obliged him to sign recognizance not to leave. The oppositionist denied the accusations brought against him by the investigators.

The court refused to stop the criminal prosecution and place under house arrest Niyameddin Akhmedov, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, accused of financing terrorism. The oppositionist denied the accusations and called them politically motivated.

The detention of Akhmed Pogorov is unlikely to change the accusations against the other defendants in the "Ingush case". This opinion was voiced by the advocates interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot". The defenders also ruled out the merger of the Akhmed Pogorov's case with the cases of other defendants, since there would be a need to start the entire investigation from the beginning.

The court has sentenced Elchin Gasanzade, a journalist and a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), and Ibragim Tyurksoi, a blogger, to eight months in prison each on charges of defamation and insult.

The Committee against Repressions and Torture sees political motives in the cases of the Azerbaijani journalists, Polad Aslanov and Afghan Sadygov, and demanded to stop prosecuting them.

The investigation of the "Mediazona" and the "Scanner Project" into the murder of Boris Nemtsov has shown that only ordinary perpetrators occurred in the prisoner's dock, Dmitry Borko, a journalist, has noted. The journalists did the work that investigators never did, Vadim Prokhorov, the advocate for the Nemtsov family, has stated.