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The decree on pardoning issued by the President of Azerbaijan has not solved the problem of political prisoners in the country. Despite the release of a number of activists and journalists, 90 percent of political prisoners stay in prisons, rights defenders report.

In Derbent, a fire at the "airport" mosque occurred on March 17, at about 2 a.m. in the morning. No one was injured. The building of the Salafi mosque in Derbent is completely burned down, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by believers of the mosque. According to them, fire-fighters ignored their requests to extinguish the fire.

Investigators had violated defendants' rights; and the first-instance court had failed to take into account the arguments of the defence, the convicts in Said Amirov's case said in their last plea at consideration of their appeal complaint. They called on the Supreme Court (SC) of Russia to make a verdict of acquittal.

The attack in Grozny on Igor Kalyapin is a continuation of the attack on rights defenders and journalists, committed on March 9 in Ingushetia, said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian President.

The Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev has signed a decree to pardon 148 persons. The text of the document is posted on the website of the President of Azerbaijan.

Supplying gas to 1600 consumers in the Khasavyurt District of Dagestan stopped, because of an improvised explosive device (IED) found at the distribution manifold.

Almost 3500 Russian citizens left for Syria and Iraq to take part in the combat actions in the ranks of the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS), banned in Russia. This was reported by Vladimir Makarov, the deputy head of the Chief Department to Combat Extremism of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).

In the Khasavyurt District of Dagestan, law enforcers detained three local residents, who were involved in the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS) and were plotting terror acts in Russia, reports the press centre of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC).

Today, the Baku Court of Appeal (BCA) has released Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadyrov from custody. The BCA has replaced the journalist's actual sentence to imprisonment with the suspended sentence with a probation period of 5 years.

In Dagestan, law enforcers beat a brother of Ramis Mirzakhanov, a deputy of the Tabasaran District Assembly, who was killed in 2014. This was reported by Ruslan Mirzakhanov himself. He associates the attack on him with his efforts to bring to responsibility the persons guilty of his brother's death.

The attempt on Imam Khamzat Chumakov may involve radical Salafis. This opinion was expressed by Alexei Malashenko, a member of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Carnegie Centre. Shortly before the attempt, Imam Chumakov "lost" the protection of the Chechen authorities, notes journalist Orkhan Djemal.

Last night, four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been discovered in the village of Mutsalaul of the Khasavyurt District. Law enforcers have organized the neutralization of the IEDs.

After being attacked in Grozny, Igor Kalyapin, the leader of the "Committee for the Prevention of Torture", left Chechnya for the Stavropol Territory. This was reported by the human rights defender himself.

The experts, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot", believe that the attack on Igor Kalyapin in Grozny is a direct consequence of the impunity for the attack on rights defenders and journalists in Ingushetia.

The attack on Igor Kalyapin, the head of the "Committee for the Prevention of Torture" (CPT) has been committed this evening near the hotel "Grozny City", said Dmitry Utukin, a CPT member.

In future, Yakub Zakriev, 26, may take the post of the head of Chechnya, said the political analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" on the occasion of the appointment of Zakriev, Ramzan Kadyrov's nephew, to the post of Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic.

In Russia, the "Islamic State" (IS) has its organized underground, whose members may significantly increase the level of the terror threat; therefore the country is in dire need of "clever propaganda", so that young people had no desire to join militants, asserts Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, the author of the report on the export of jihad from the Caucasus to Syria.

Today, Nils Muižnieks, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE), has published a memo on the murder case of Natalia Estemirova, a Russian rights defender and journalist, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". On March 15, the memo was submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which considers a complaint lodged by Estemirova's sister. The CoE's Commissioner has acted at the ECtHR as a third party in the case.

The level of violence in Northern Caucasus has dropped significantly, partly due to the outflow of militants to Syria. But Russia needs to conduct an effective de-radicalization in Northern Caucasus – not to suppress moderate Salafis, and create for radicals the conditions for leaving the underground. This is stated in the report of the International Crisis Group (ICG), published today.

At the border with Georgia, Russian border guards have detained two residents of one of the republics of Northern Caucasus, who, according to the FSB, had planned to go to Syria to join the "Islamic State" (IS), banned in Russia.