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The Georgian Govt's plans to build the "Khadori-3" hydroelectric power plant (HPP) have split residents of the Pankisi Gorge into two camps; the conflict was exacerbated by the political confrontation.

Chechen authorities are making use of public humiliations by relying both on the Soviet experience and on the long-standing traditions of the nation. However, over time, people's systematic demonstrative humiliations start generating the opposite effect, the experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

A Russian suspected of assassinating Zelimkhan Khangoshvili has been transferred from the Moabit Prison into the high security prison in Tegel. The decision was made by employees of the State Criminal Investigation Department: they received information that the killer is in danger of liquidation, the "Berliner Morgenpost" newspaper has written.

On December 6, a Volgograd court extended by two months the detention of five Jehovah Witnesses*. Their relatives complain that investigators ban to visit the detainees.

A bill adopted by the Armenian parliament and restricting water withdrawal from Lake Sevan is inefficient, since it does not prohibit the use of large volumes of water from the lake, say ecologists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".

In addition to 20 administrative protocols on the absence of a "foreign agent" mark drawn up against the "International Memorial" and Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" after the inspection conducted by the Ingush FSB, the "Roskomnadzor" (Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) drew up eight more protocols on a complaint filed by an individual.

In Moscow and Ingushetia, six persons have been detained in a case on the murder of Ibragim Eldjarkiev, the chief of the Ingush Centre for Combating Extremism (CCE, also known as Centre "E"). Entrepreneur Khasan Polonkoev, one of the detainees, led the grouping involved in the murder, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) suggests.

Azerbaijani human rights defender Ogtai Gyulyalyev, who is being treated in Turkey, has got a new complication: liver problems, but the question concerning further financing of his medical treatment still remains open, his spouse reports.

Nail Mukhanov, a resident of Astrakhan, accused of illicit trafficking of ammunition and explosive devices, claims that the case against him has been fabricated.

While refusing to rehabilitate Vali Bagautdinov, who was killed in the attack on a policeman, the Supreme Court (SC) of Dagestan has failed to take into account the testimony of a witness, who had stated that he was forced to slander the defendant. The SC has also neglected other arguments of the defence, Gulnara Bagautdinova, Vali's mother, has stated.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has upheld the complaint of Beibala Abil, an Azerbaijani oppositionist, about violation of his right to free elections and obliged the country's authorities to pay a monetary compensation to him.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who was killed in Germany, had cooperated with Georgian special services only under Mikhail Saakashvili. After the change of power, these services began contacting their Russian colleagues; and Khangoshvili was forced to leave the country, his acquaintances have told.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found a violation of the freedom of expression in the criminal cases initiated against the late publicist, Rafig Tagi, and the journalist, Samir Sadagatoglu. The ECtHR has ruled that compensations should be paid to Sadagatoglu and Tagi's widow in the total amount of over 25,000 euros.

According to calculations of the "Caucasian Knot", over the past six days, officials of the Chechen Republic, which is subsidized from the Russian federal budget, have reported on at least 12 infrastructure and social projects financed by the Akhmat Kadyrov Fund.

Ilham Aliev has signed a decree on the dissolution of parliament, and the parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 9, 2020.

A video message posted on Instagram by a resident of Chechnya who reported that he had to buy additional medical materials for his brother who was to undergo surgery turned into a new episode of the public apology campaign.

The jury twice pronounced verdicts of acquittal in the case on the murder in 2016 of Zhalalutdin Sungurov, a resident of Dagestan, and the cassation court acquitted the defendant in spite of the requests voiced by public prosecutor, the "Mediazona" reports today.

Today, the Southern District Military Court has sentenced Muslim Enver Seitosmanov, accused of involvement in a Sevastopol unit of an organization banned in Russia by the court, to 17-year-old of imprisonment in a penal colony. The defence treats the court's decision as politically motivated.

Following the FSB Department for Ingushetia, an individual filed a complaint to the "Roskomnadzor" (Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) about the fact that the materials of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" were released without a "foreign agent" mark. As a result, the number of administrative protocols drawn up against Alexander Cherkasov, the chairman of the HRC's Council, reached eight.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation decided to stop financing the Ogtai Gyulyalyev's stay at a clinic in Istanbul and to return him to Azerbaijan, where medical treatment might be less effective, the Committee against Repression and Torture voiced its fears on December 4.