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The central square of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, is now the venue of a protest rally, in which about one hundred persons take part. The protesters demand to stop prosecuting the "Charitable Women's Hospital".

Rashid Gurzhiev and Anatoly Dursunov, members of the Kurmanch community, were beaten by employees of law enforcement bodies of the Krasnodar Territory.

Andres Herkel and Evgenia Zhivkova, co-rapporteurs of the PACE, continue their meetings in Azerbaijan. Today they had a meeting with Azer Ahmedov, director of the "Azadlyg" newspaper.

Today, at the trial on the events on October 13, 2005, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria continued to select future jurymen. The defence party has finished questioning the candidates. Two defendants have stated that they were beaten by sentries.

On May 15, Alan Parastaev, a citizen of South Ossetia, who was sentenced on charges of an attempt on President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity and high treason, lodged a cassation complaint to the Supreme Court of the Republic of South Ossetia with a demand to reconsider the verdict.

Ombudsman of Georgia Sozar Subari has addressed Levan Tarkhnishvili, head of the Central Electoral Commissions of Georgia, with a request to draw up a protocol on Lado Kvichidze, Manager of the Tbilisi City Illumination Agency ("Tbilgorodosveschenie"), who ordered to take away pre-election posters of Eka Beseliya, a candidate from the United Opposition.

Temur Yakobashvili, State Minister for Reintegration Issues, made his forecast in answer to the question on how the present status of Russian-Georgian relations can affect the next round of negotiations on accession of the Russian Federation to the World Trade Organization to start early next week.

Beatings, tortures and other illegal actions of Russian militiamen against their fellow citizens are in many aspects provoked by their experience gained in the course of "counterterrorist operations" in Northern Caucasus, Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" asserts.

Because of the pressure exerted by the authorities of Georgia, 26 majority candidates from the block of "industrialists" have withdrawn their candidatures.

Today in the afternoon, the police have undertaken a number of steps to prevent a protest action planned by supporters of Aram Karapetyan, leader of the opposition party "New Times", near the building of the State Office of Public Prosecutor of Armenia, and took away their tent.

The Women's Charitable Hospital, located in Makhachkala, is now under audits and inspections held by the Ministry of Public Health of Dagestan. The Hospital managers explain these measures by their unwillingness to abandon the premises now occupied by the Hospital.

The authorities of Azerbaijan are depriving their citizens of the opportunity not only to resist falsifications during elections and violence in the country, but also to trace these crimes. This is the topic of the statement of Leila Yunus, Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy.

The case of Private Alexander Ivanov who was beaten on February 24 in Military Unit No. 6822, deployed in Krasnodar, was transferred to the Krasnodar Garrison Military Court.

Advocate Larissa Dorogova told that she is persecuted by those for whom proper defence of the rights of the relatives of those militants who perished on October 13, 2005, during the attack on power agencies of Kabardino-Balkaria is disadvantageous.

The All-Russian NGO "Voice of Beslan" has drafted, together with the Volgodonsk NGO of Terror Act Victims, a bill named "On Social Defence of Terror Act Victims".

The Prosecutor's Office of the Volgograd Region states the inadmissibility of the lenient verdicts passed by the Regional Court to former militiamen who had severely beaten teenagers.

German diplomat Dieter Boden has categorically rejected the "Spiegel" magazine information and assured Georgian journalists that he gave no interview to the German edition about his support of recognition of Abkhazia's independence.

Today, the Prosecutor's Office of Ingushetia has lodged an additional claim to the Kuntsevo Court of Moscow demanding to deprive the "Ingushetia.Ru" website of its domain name, since the Office feels incapable to close this Internet-based edition as a mass medium. This was explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Musa Pliev, advocate of Magomed Evloev, the website owner.

Issa Arsaev, who was shot dead on May 8 by employees of the FSB (Federal Security Bureau of Russia) Department for Ingushetia in Kantyshevo village, Nazran District, was not a militant and rendered no resistance to power agents. Arsaev's relatives and eyewitnesses of the incident told about it to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

The Moscow City Court has sentenced the eight defendants accused of exploding Cherkizovo marketplace to prison terms from two years to life-long term.