All news

The Institute of Peace and Democracy, an Azerbaijan human rights organization, issued a statement devoted to the trials against oppositionists arrested in the autumn of 2003.

Twelve people who have been working in the field of peacemaking for a long time and have been advocating nonviolent approaches to the resolution of the Chechen conflict nominated for the prize.

The meeting "For Russia Without Putin" was held on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow on March 10.

One of the leaders of the opposition organization Democratic Adjaria, Tengiz Apkhazava, who had disappeared in Batumi several days ago, returned home at daybreak on March 11 savagely beaten.

Another deadline for dismantling the Sputnik refugee camp in Ingushetia expired on March 10; but unsurprisingly, only 20 families left the camp.

An assassination attempt on the Chechen Deputy Interior Minister Sultan Saduyev and Deputy Justice Minister Mussa Yevsultanov was made in Grozny.

Meanwhile, Moscow Helsinki Group chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva said "refugees are being forced to return to Chechnya from Ingushetia."

Ali Temirbekov, press secretary of the republican prosecutor's office, announced it.

According to Christian Strohal, Director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) official Tbilisi should use the possibility it has due to the "Rose Revolution" to establish contacts between "the electors and the elected".

By its decision, the Sukhumi Court set the detainees free from the courtroom because it saw no crime in their actions.

In the afternoon of March 10, armed men in military camouflage abducted 19-year-old Bislan Dokuyev from the Satsita refugee camp, located near Ordzhonikidzevskaya, Ingushetia.

Mass detentions of relatives of Umar and Magomed Khambiyevs, who had occupied high positions in Aslan Maskhadov's government earlier, started on February 29 in the villages of Meskety, Benoy, and Turty-Khutor.

The round table discussion "The Institution of Observation at the Elections: Purposes, Tasks, and Outlook" was held in Stavropol on March 5.

The first stage of the "How Much?" campaign was a large-scale action to post leaflets; the next stage will be the distribution of application forms among Ryazan residents with argued requests to government bodies about losses among Russian servicemen and financial expenditure on military operations.

The main task of the project was to stimulate interest of journalists, both professionals and students, to the activity of non-government organizations (NGOs), to form skills in working with them.

Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba received a member of the British NGO Conciliation Resources, Caucasus Program Manager Jonathan Cohen. They discussed projects carried out by the organization together with local NGOs.

An armed clash with an illegal armed group took place between the villages of Shuani and Yalkhoi-Mokhk in the Kurchaloy district. Six rebels were killed and another four injured. Aslan Gazuyev, commander of the Riada-as-Salikhin rebel group, was killed as well.

"Establishing, unfortunately, the inability of the international community to stop the war and thereby end the tragedy of the Chechen people, the Chechen National Rescue Committee calls upon the international community once again to stop at least high-handedness towards Chechen refugees," reads the statement by the organization.

The Yerevan Press Club, the Armenian Helsinki Committee, the Civil Society Institute, and the Caucasian Center for Peacemaking Initiatives issued a joint statement on the murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian by an Azerbaijan serviceman in Budapest.

The head of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Jean-Herve Bradol, said his kidnapping was aimed at "silencing those criticising conditions in Chechnya".