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The day of October 23, 2019, marked the 17th anniversary of the seizure of the Dubrovka Theatre Centre. The terror act took place in Moscow, on October 23-26, 2002. A group of armed militants led by Movsar Baraev took 916 hostages. The terrorists demanded an immediate cessation of hostilities in Chechnya and the withdrawal of federal troops from the republic. During rescue operation 130 hostages, including 10 children, were killed, and more than 700 other hostages were injured.

He is a native of Chechnya, who is trying to get refugee status in Germany. In September 2017, he became the first native of the republic to confess to his homosexuality.

On September 5, 2016, Chechen journalist Zhalaudi Geriev, working for the 'Caucasian Knot', was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a penal colony on charges of drug possession. Prior to his arrest, on April 16, 2016, Geriev was kidnapped by armed men on his way to the airport after he had already bought an airline ticket and registered online. After kidnapping law enforcers confiscated his phones and backpack, which allegedly contained drugs. The armed men then took the journalist to the forest and questioned him, tying his hands and putting a plastic bag over his head.

Zhalaudi Geriev is a Chechen journalist and a correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot". On September 5, 2016, he was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment on the charge of drug possession. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" recognized Zhalaudi Geriev as a political prisoner.

Azerbaijani journalist and rights defender

February 23 marks 75 years since the beginning of the Stalin's deportation of Chechen and Ingush people. However, the memorial day is not officially marked in Chechnya itself. Ruslan Kutaev, the chair of the Assembly of the Peoples of the Caucasus, who publicly spoke in 2014 against the ban on the February mourning events, was sentenced on the falsified charge and sent to prison for almost four years.

The history of kidnappings, torture and murders of gays in Chechnya has touched on not only men, many of whom left Russia or went, well in advance, to study and work in other regions. The fate of a woman of non-traditional sexual orientation is entirely in the hands of her relatives; and they are no less cruel than law enforcers. The "Caucasian Knot" tells about what queer women face in Chechnya.

At the request of the "Caucasian Knot", a GIS expert, a graduate of the Cartography and Geoinformation Division of the Geography Department of the Moscow State University has analyzed, on the condition of anonymity, the maps of the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia in the light of the agreement on the exchange of territories signed on September 26, and made a new map depicting the Ingush-Chechen border.

A Russian MMA fighter, a native of Dagestan. After a battle with Al Iaquinta in April 2018, Khabib Nurmagomedov became the first Russian citizen in UFC with a champion title. On October 6, 2018, he defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 229 tournament in Las Vegas.

On July 9, 2013, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev, our colleague, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, was killed in the suburb of Makhachkala.

He defends human rights, investigated a mass execution in Chechnya, and made efforts to make socially important problems public.

He made public facts of violations during the pre-election campaign in Armenia.

He has made public an important public issue by publishing his investigation into kidnappings of journalists in Azerbaijan.

More than 50 international and Russian human rights, media and internet freedom organisations have united behind a call for Russia to stop its attempts to block the instant messaging application Telegram and for the country’s authorities to cease their broader crackdown on Internet freedom and digital privacy.

Two years have passed after the “four-day war”, but shelling and explosions on the demarcation line between Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan never cease. Military and civilians are still dying. The “Caucasian Knot” has analyzed more than 500 reports of the Ministries of Defense of all parties to conflict and compiled a calendar of military operations for the second year of the so-called truce in the conflict zone.

“By all appearances Oyub Titiev’s case is fabricated as a revenge for his human rights work. We demand Russian authorities to drop charges, immediately release Oyub Titiev, and guarantee his safety. Russia’s international partners should keep a close watch on the situation and demand Russian authorities to free Oyub Titiev,” said Joanna Kurosz, Eurasia programme director at Civil Rights Defenders.

We are troubled by the news that the head of the local Chechen branch office of the Russian human rights NGO Memorial, Oyub Titiev, has been arrested. This is the latest in a string of reports of alarming recent human rights violations in Chechnya. We call on Chechen authorities to immediately release Mr. Titiev.

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), voiced serious concerns regarding the arrest and detention of Oyub Titiev, Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in Chechnya, in the North Caucasus republic of the Russian Federation.

The blood feud is a custom that had formed during the clannish social system as a universal means of defending the honour, dignity and property of the clan. It implies the duty of casualty's relatives to take revenge on the killer or his relatives. In recent months, several reasons have appeared to make sure – in Northern Caucasus, the blood feud is by no means a part of history; it continues acting as an actual social mechanism.