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The European Court of Human Rights is considering a claim of Viktoria Sypchenko, a resident of the town of Bataysk, Rostov Region. Earlier, she was put on probation for three years under the article "Fraud". Viktoria was pregnant, nevertheless she was under arrest in the course of investigation.

"The time given for the preparation and holding of the election sufficed only for continuation of the chosen tactics ? to come to power by all means, but not for the holding of the fair election of the head of state," leaders of some Abkhazian parties and non-governmental organizations announced in a joint statement.

The Chechen Interior Ministry asserts that there was no abduction of Aslan Maskhadov's relatives. The republican law enforcement agencies know nothing about it anyhow.

The state of Alan Parastayev, director of the Center for Humanitarian Initiatives and Studies beaten by officers of the South Osetian Interior Ministry, has improved.

For the same period of time, 293 locals were found dead on the territory of Chechnya.

The Kabardino-Balkarian Interior Ministry refused accreditation to Fatima Tlisova saying bluntly that the reason for it lay in her position as a journalist. In Karachaevo-Cherkessia, an attempt was made to accuse her of illegal receiving a pension and institute criminal proceedings against her.

Journalist Alan Parastayev, director of the Center for Humanitarian Studies and Initiatives, was savagely beaten on the Transkam road near the Osetia tourist center at about 11 p.m. on December 30, when he made an attempt to obtain from South Osetian law enforcers information about a column of cars they had detained earlier.

In his interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent, head of the Monitoring Group to Examine Pipeline Systems in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Mais Gyulaliyev claimed that low quality pipes are used to construct the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeikhan oil pipeline.

The informal meeting between Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and leader of the breakaway republic of South Osetia Eduard Kokoity that was much expected has not taken place. Mr Zhvania told journalists that "Mr Kokoity has a habit of changing plans at the last moment".

The New Year's storm of Grozny in the winter of 1994 became one of the most tragic pages of the first military campaign in Chechnya.

This decree grants a pardon to 54 convicts, including Sardar Gamidov, the former head of Azerbaijan's Tertersky district executive power and brother of ex-minister of foreign affairs Iskander Gamidov.

"Sessions of the Government, the Security Council, and the Interior Ministry are broadcast every day. Everybody claims we should fight hard against the abductors of people, but nothing happens in reality," an abducted man's close relative said.

Asked about Abkhazia's future, Sergey Bagapsh said that the Abkhazian people had already chosen the way of independence and were not going to turn off it.

Those members of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP)who took part in the municipal elections regardless of the party's decision to boycott the elections will be punished, ADP secretary for ideology Aydin Guliyev told the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

All arrangements for the action have almost been completed, officials of the Ingush Spiritual Administration of Moslems said.

Torture is a widely spread means of obtaining evidence in the system of the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry, and no police officer has been punished for it, human rights activist Leyla Yunus said.

"The rumors that the attack on the Anti-Drug Department is an anti-Kabardian action organized by Balkarians are very alarming," head of the Kabardino-Balkarian Human Rights Center Valery Khatazhukov said.

For the period of its activity, the "fast response group" in the staff of the Azerbaijan ombudsperson has inspected over 150 temporary detention isolators and revealed no fact of torture.

On December 23, at a closed session of the standing parliamentary commission on foreign relations, Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian submitted to the deputies the memorandum on mutual understanding "On the Commanders of the Multinational Division Forming a Part of the Stabilization Forces in Iraq and Resolution of Other Problems."

Today, officers of local and federal security agencies detained approximately 20 people during a joint "special operation" on the territory of the Rassvet refugee camp in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, Ingushetia.