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On July 2 the first hearing took place at the Court of Istanbul of Hrant Dink's murder case. The trial of 18 defendants lasted for about 12 hours. For 12 of them, the custody was chosen to be the freedom restriction measure.

Representatives of the Georgian nongovernmental organization (NGO) "Equality Institute" Jaba Dzhishkariani, Leval Gogichaishvili and David Dalakishvili were released from arrest today at 2:00 p.m.

The conflict of the Azerbaijani officer with the top managers of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) started two years ago after inspection at the Peace-Making Battalion of Azerbaijan in Iraq, where numerous violations had been revealed.

The residents of the Imereti Lowland are preparing their new meetings of protest against their eviction.

The relatives of the militants who fell victim during the 2005 autumn attack on the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria are convinced that cremation of the militants' bodies was nothing else but an attempt of the authorities to destroy the traces of tortures applied to them and lawless executions.

Today, President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh has met Ivo Petrov, deputy special representative of the UN Secretary General in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, and chief military observer of the UN Mission General Khan-Khattak.

Today in Azerbaijan, the Appeal Court has considered the complaint of Samir Sadatoglu, editor-in-chief of the "Sanat" (Culture) newspaper, and publicist Rafik Tagi.

The "Ago" Group that is now in Azerbaijan met human rights activists. The meeting considered the situation with the freedom of speech, the law "On Freedom of Assembly," the staff of electoral commissions, voters' lists, the problem of political prisoners, etc.

The numerous problems existing in Javakhk now have an addition: Georgian authorities intend to dismiss all the Armenians who do not speak Georgian.

The judicial system of the European Court for Human Rights is far from being perfect, since it resorts to forcing a respondent-state to pay out compensation. Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial," called this practice the "impunity tax."

The Russian State Duma has passed in the third and final reading the law on strengthening the struggle against extremism.

In February 2006, at anonymous polling on the problem of hazing in the army, held in the military unit No. 22292 of the 85th Motor Rifle Division, a number of servicemen pointed to private Ruslan Velkhiev as an infringer of statutory relations.

On July 5, Ahmed-Nabi Magdigadzhiev, Secretary of the Security Council of Dagestan, had a meeting with the initiative group of the refugees from Borozdinovskaya village.

The European Court for Human Rights has recognized that Ruslan Alihadjiev, Speaker of Chechen Parliament, was kidnapped by Russian authorities and became "a victim of violent disappearance."

On July 4, the Lefortovo Court of Moscow made a decision to extend till October 8 the arrest term of three Chechnya natives (Umar Batukaev, Ruslan Musaev and Lors Khamiev), accused of preparing a terror act in the Russian capital on the Victory Day.

Ovik Arsenyan, advocate of Alexander Arzumanian, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, has filed a petition to the Appeal Court claiming to appeal against the first instance court's decision on extension by two months the ex-Minister's custody term.

Some 700,000 Azerbaijanis, who have received, after 1994, the status of internally displaced persons in connection with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, are facing serious discrimination and segregation in Azerbaijan.

On July 4, the State Duma approved in the second reading amendments to the Law "On Counteracting Extremist Activities," to the Criminal Code and a number of other legislative acts.

On July 4, hundreds of local residents rallied in Manaskent village (Dagestan) with the demand to hold an objective investigation and punish those guilty of murdering local resident Kamil Chamsudinov.

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games will take place in the city of Sochi. It was announced in Guatemala at the session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).