Encyclopedia

Gyunay Ismayilova is one of the most active members of the Azerbaijani NGO "Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety" (IRFS). In 2015, despite the pressure and persecutions, she organized, on the volunteer basis, monitoring of court trials against human rights defenders and journalists, and published information about human rights violation in Azerbaijan.

Elena Zavodskaya, an Abkhazian journalist, has covered the legal proceedings at courts of the Russian Gulgaz Mamedova, from whom her husband’s relatives had taken away took a child, and of Liana Todua, who died because of doctors’ incompetence.

In 2015, the social activist Albert Voskanyan achieved the resumption of monitoring the penitentiary establishments of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). He defended prisoners’ rights and was engaged in activities of social rehabilitation of former prisoners.

Over a long period of time, Dina Alborova, an activist and political analyst, has fought for the rights of non-government organizations (NGOs) of South Ossetia, which were under pressure from the authorities.

Gela Nikolaishvili was nominated for the “Hero of the Caucasus-2015” contest of the “Caucasian Knot” for achieving particular results in helping people.

In 2015, Tamta Mikeladze, a lawyer from Ajara and an employee of the NGO “Centre for Training and Human Rights Monitoring”; defended the interests of the owner of the children’s Muslim boarding school in Kobuleti, the closure of which was demanded by local residents; also, she acted as advocate of the LGBT activists, detained in Tbilisi on May 17, 2014, on charge of resisting the police.

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, 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, 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, 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.