Encyclopedia

In 2015, Zaurbiy Chundyshko, a public figure from Adygea, held a solo picket in memory of Judy Maf, an 11-year-old Circassian girl, who lived with her parents in the Adyg village of Marj Alsultan and was killed in Syria on September 26. The aim of the picket was to attract attention to the problem of repatriation of Circassians from Syria, where over 200,000 Circassians live.

In 2015, Igor Stenin, a public activist from Astrakhan, openly stated rights violations of Russian residents of the region and organized an action in support of the rights of the Russian population.

In 2015, human rights defender Semyon Ateev publicly criticized the national policy in Kalmykia; he stated the infringement of the rights of the Kalmyk language.

In 2015, Valery Dyakonov, a public activist from the Rostov Region protected the rights of deceived citizens, who received in the city clinical hospital invalid certificates for obtaining driver's licenses. Also in 2015, Mr Dyakonov achieved the issuance of overalls and payment wages in full to the ambulance staff.

In 2015, Alexander Saveliev, an activist of the "Environmental Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch) from Krasnodar, a blogger and rights defender, supported the political prisoner and ecologist Evgeny Vitishko, and fought against the capture of territories and unauthorized waste dumping.

In 2015, Valery Kotelnikov from Volgograd was addressing the problems of illegal city development and preservation of architectural monuments.

Toma Tsechoeva, an Ingush human rights defender, protected the rights of Magomed Aushev, who had been tortured by law enforcers after his detention on suspicion of opening fire from a car of a wedding cortege.

In 2015, the lawyer Alaudi Musaev defended the rights of Kurman-Ali Baichorov, the Imam from the city of Kislovodsk, openly stating the lawlessness of power agents. He filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) aiming to defend Baichorov’s rights. He managed to achieve the Imam’s release under the recognisance not to leave.

In 2015, Ruslan Dauev, a lawyer from Vladikavkaz, defended the rights of the family of Ruslan Tskaev, detained on suspicion of attempted murder of a policeman, who died due to abuse of power of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). As a result, 10 current MIA employees have been already attracted to criminal liability.

In 2015, Khachim Zheligashtov, a public figure from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), helped repatriates from Syria and low-income families in the KBR. He organized several charity actions.

In 2015, Ruslan Martagov, a political analyst from Chechnya, made a number of statements on arbitrariness of the authorities of the Chechen Republic and persecutions of the dissent.

In 2015, Ruslan Kambiev, a blogger and human rights defender, initiated the creation of an independent North-Caucasian expert-analytical centre, which united human rights defenders, journalists and public activists of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and other regions of the country. Mr Kambiev openly stated pressure by the authorities on public activists, the formation of "manual" councils and public chambers in regions, which fail to raise real problems of interest to the society.

The three-year jail sentence that Chechen journalist Zhalaudi Geriyev received on a charge of drug possession on 5 September was clearly a politically-motivated punishment for his reporting and, as such, was the latest offensive in Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s war against independent journalism.

In response to a Russian court sentencing Zhalaudi Geriev, a journalist with the online news site Caucasian Knot, to three years imprisonment, Freedom House issued the following statement.

ARTICLE 19 condemns the sentencing of Caucasian Knot journalist, Zhalaudi Geriev, to three years in jail on dubious narcotics charges, which we believe to be politically motivated.

On 5 September 2016, the Shali District Court of Chechnya sentenced human rights defender Mr Zhalaudi Geriev to three years imprisonment on charges of drug possession.

In summer of 2014, Azerbaijan faced a wave of arrests of opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights defenders. In particular, the story of Leyla and Arif Yunus spouses got resonance beyond Azerbaijan. Baku officials declared inadmissibility of interference in the internal affairs of the state; in turn, opposition and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Amnesty International (AI), the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Human Rights Watch (HRW), protested against the actions of the state security of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani journalist, author of the series of journalist reports dealing with state-level corruption in Azerbaijan. On October 24, 2012, she was awarded the Courage of Journalism Award founded by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF).