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Today, the settlement of Nardaran, located 30 km off to the north-east of Baku, hosted already the third within the last nine days Azerbaijani protest action against the ban on wearing headscarves (hijabs) in schools.

Today, most of the detentions during the unsanctioned public action in memory of Yegor Sviridov, assassinated Moscow Spartak fan, were unjustified. This was stated by protesters, while militiamen stress that this was the way to prevent riots.

They tried to hold an unsanctioned action under nationalist slogans. As reported by Alexander Kravchenko, head of the Regional GUVD, a group of young persons formed a column in the centre of the city: "Youngsters in masks were chanting nationalist slogans and tried to provoke unrest. The militia managed to stop their actions."

Moscow militiamen have detained about ten natives of the Caucasus and confiscated traumatic weapons and prohibited items from them.

It is planned to accommodate the homeless citizens of the burnt-down Dagestani village of Tsibari in the cities of Kaspiisk, Kizilyurt, Buinaksk and Kizlyar. The authorities plan to completely solve the problem of providing housing to fire victims by April 2011.

Students-activists of North Ossetia are troubled of the situation in Moscow and promulgated an appeal today, expressing strong condemnation of the recent youth's extremist actions.

In the opinion of Giga Bokeriya, head of the Georgian delegation, the 14th round of Geneva talks was actually fruitless.

The construction of the railway section across the territory, where red-book plants are growing, in Sochi, will resume after reception of results of an additional examination of the territory.

Anas Pshikhachev, Mufti of Kabardino-Balkaria, who perished from hands of assassins, had repeatedly raised his voice against religious extremism. Well before the events of October 13, 2005, in Nalchik, when militants attacked the power objects of the city, the Mufti warned from the pages of local newspapers that "Wahhabism can bring great harm to the republic." At the same time, Anas Pshikhachev has repeatedly and openly opposed illegal actions of law enforcement officials against Muslims.

Corruption and money laundering were the main reasons for detention of Papuna Khachidze, director of the Forest Agency of the Ministry of Ecology of Georgia, and Georgi Bagaturiya, head of the GIS Service of the Forest Agency. This was announced by David Sakvarelidze, General Public Prosecutor of Tbilisi.

Opposition activists and several hundreds of internally displaced persons (forced migrants) held a protest action in front of the Parliament of Georgia. They demanded to stop evicting refugees from the places of their temporary residence in Tbilisi and provide the homeless refugees with housing in the capital.

The militia in Rostov-on-Don continues its work in the emergency mode; however, according to the statement of the Regional GUVD, no serious crimes were registered in the city for the last day. The Rostov State Building University (RSBU) is checking the study achievements of all the students. According to university bosses, student Khasbulat Markhiev, suspected of murdering Maxim Sychov had a lot of absenteeism and poor performance; therefore, he will be expelled from the university.

The fate of the five natives of the Caucasus, who disappeared in Moscow in late September, is still unknown. Their relatives suppose that they were detained by power agents and are kept in some Moscow detention centre. Rights defenders, who have joined the search, found that the cases of three missing persons are run by the military inquiry department, while all the actions on the cases of the remaining two have been suspended. Besides, the story about five missing persons develops further and has transformed into a story about seven detainees.

A fourteen-year-old schoolboy who stubbed a pupil of the ninth form, native of one of the republics of Northern Caucasus, with a knife was detained in the town of Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, a source in law enforcement bodies reported today.

Kadyrov might have been involved in organizing attempts at four of his critics and there is a number of proofs of this in the materials of criminal cases, witness Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya stated at the trial on the accusation of slander at Ramzan Kadyrov against Oleg Orlov, Head of "Memorial" Human Rights Center (HC) on December, 16. Andrey Krasnenkov, Kadyrov's attorney, called this statement slander.

Last night a militia officer in the settlement of Khushet, Dagestan, wounded three of his acquaintances by a shot from a Government-issue pistol during a quarrel, a source in law enforcement bodies of the republic reported.

A freight train was blown up in Derbent district of Dagestan. There is no information of injuries.

Valery Khatazhukov, head of the Kabardino-Balkarian Public Human Rights Centre, believes the events underway in Moscow in the context of the murder of Yegor Sviridov, a Spartak fan, are elements of the campaign of deliberate grazing Russian youth with their Caucasian counterparts. Murat Khokonov, a member of the Public Chamber of Kabardino-Balkaria, said that many parents already doubt, whether it is reasonable to send their children to universities in other regions of Russia.

On December 15, the Moscow Central House of Journalists held the Journalists' Commemoration Day.

On December 15, the militia detained over 1300 persons and confiscated 16 traumatic pistols, more than 200 knives, hammers and baseball bats, a source from law enforcement bodies of Moscow said today. In total, 37 persons have been attracted to administrative responsibility for various offences.