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The election campaign in Azerbaijan is passing under restriction of the freedom of assembly and is accompanied by persecutions of oppositionists, which does not contribute to democratic parliamentary elections. This was stated by a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) after its trip to Baku.

On January 24, Alexander Kananyan, a political analyst, was visited by Grigory Martirosyan, a minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), and told him about the environmental threats of the operation of small hydropower plants (HPPs) on the Trtu River. Mr Kananyan refused to end his hunger strike, because no decision was made to stop the HPPs.

After the “velvet” revolution in Armenia, cases of domestic violence and discrimination against LGBT people and people with disabilities have not been eradicated, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has stated. The authorities do not deny these problems, but not everything is done to solve them, Yerevan rights defenders believe.

The prosecutor’s office has sent to the court the case to a resident of Kuban (a common name of the Krasnodar Territory by the name of the main river), accused of killing a same-sex couple of pensioners in the Seversky District.

Policemen have found no signs of an offense in Ramzan Kadyrov’s public appeals to crack down on authors of gossips about Chechnya, a Nizhny Novgorod journalist said. Facebook users have noted that they had expected no different response from law enforcers.

On Friday, January 24, 2020, law enforcers began their raid at the “Tangim” Mosque in Makhachkala long before the Friday namaz (prayer); and it lasted longer than usual. Visitors to the mosque said that they are used to checks and take documents with them in advance.

The Chechen Minister of Culture and Ramzan Kadyrov’s assistant have joined in condemning the spouses from Dagestan, who used Chechen music and a car in their wedding video. The minister called the video provocative.

After a conversation with a theologian, Roza Murdalova, a resident of the Urus-Martan District, has repented of providing occult services, the "Grozny" TV Channel reports. The woman was forced to repent, some residents of Chechnya suggest.

The woman said that in her struggle for a fair investigation into the case of her brother's death, she had to endure constant threats, surveillance, and slander. Despite her health problems, Pyatimat Yusupova intends to continue her human rights activities.

A story of Chechen native Khasdin Murtazaliev, who succeeded in seeking prosecution of warders who beat him, shows that prisoners from the Caucasus should more actively defend their rights, human rights defenders note.

Following the results of 2019, Georgia lost three places in the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International (TI). Despite the above fact, Georgia is ahead of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia.

Law enforcers, public officers, and a theologian held a "preventive conversation" with young residents of Chechnya detained "for digressing from the norms of traditional Islam." Residents of the region claim a new campaign by the authorities to combat dissent.

Ilkin Suleimanov, accused of kidnapping and killing a ten-year-old girl from a village of the Tovuz District in Azerbaijan, said that he had confessed to the crime under torture. His advocate also claimed procedural violations. A father of the killed girl says he knows the family of the accused man very well and they never had any conflicts.

The authorities of Dagestan should break the silence on the issue of determining the borders with Chechnya in order to prevent conflicts over disputed territories, journalists believe. Backstage meetings between representatives of Chechnya and Dagestan on the issue are possible, but in general, the process of demarcation of borders should be made transparent, political analysts note.

A preparatory court hearing in a case against Azerbaijani journalist Polad Aslanov is scheduled for February 3. The journalist denies charges of high treason and threat of murder and will seek the acquittal, an advocate reports.

A court in Moscow has ruled to fine Jan Rachinsky, the head of the board of the “International Memorial”, by 100,000 roubles, for the absence of the marking of “foreign agent” in the organization’s website.

The online Azerbaijani edition “Criminal.az” was subjected to a cyber attack, which resulted in the deletion of more than 400 articles. On January 23, Anar Mamedov, its editor-in-chief, called on law enforcers to investigate the hacking of the website and punish those responsible.

In total, 45 drawings were sent to the contest held in support of Ingush political prisoners; the authors of four of them were announced winners.

The court has sentenced Magomed Ozdoev, a participant of the rally in Magas, to a year and four months in colony. Ozdoev will be set free in late February, said his advocate.

Khasdin Murtazaliev, a resident of Chechnya, reported that a beating in a penal colony in 2016 deteriorated his health. After the sentence is pronounced, all three warders accused of beating will be sued in order to recover compensation from the state, an advocate of Khasdin Murtazaliev reports.