News

February 26, 2004 13:14

• Armenian General Staff Chief: Armenia ready for war with Azerbaijan

  "If we see that they are readying for war, we will take corresponding measures. The Armenian army is ready for war. If a war begins, it will be a brutal one," said Chief of the Armenian Armed Forces' General Staff Mikhail Arutyunian.

February 26, 2004 13:02

• Action devoted to 60th anniversary of deportation of Chechens takes place in Kazan

  The Center for Peacekeeping and Human Rights Actions jointly with the All-Tatar Public Center arranged a demonstration of films from the program of the international Chechnya Film Festival.

February 25, 2004 20:30

• Meeting in Petersburg in commemoration of 60th anniversary of deportation of Chechen people

  Liberal human rights defenders, former political prisoners, about twenty anarchists and Workers' Democracy members participated in the action.

February 25, 2004 19:13

• Terry Davis: "I arrived in Karabakh not as a mediator"

  PACE rapporteur on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Terry Davis met with the leaders of Nagorny Karabakh on February 23.

February 25, 2004 19:05

• Films of international Chechnya Film Festival shown in Ryazan

  In Ryazan on February 23, the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen people, the Sasovo human rights center Choice of Conscience and the Human Rights School attached to Ryazan's Memorial Society arranged a demonstration of films from the program of the international Chechnya Film Festival.

February 25, 2004 18:14

• Attack on participants in antiwar picket in Izhevsk

  On February 23, after anarchists, antimilitarists and activists of the Ataka (Attack) movement had held an unauthorized picket against the war in Chechnya, some 30 people of the local branch of the Fascist organization Party of Freedom attacked them.

February 25, 2004 17:31

• US journalist's assistant detained in Chechnya

  According to Rebecca Santana, Ruslan Sopakhanov, a resident of the Chechen Republic, worked with her for four days as a driver helping her collect information.

February 25, 2004 16:55

• Over 200 people in Prague stage rally for peace in Chechnya

  On February 23, the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and Ingushetians to Central Asia and West Siberia in 1944, a rally was held at Namesti Miru Square in Prague.

February 25, 2004 16:39

• Georgian Prosecutor General's Office opens investigation into 21 February incident at Omega Group company

  The prosecutor has not yet specified details of the investigation, except saying that members of special forces who presented in the Omega Group office at the time of the incident have already been interrogated.

February 25, 2004 15:51

• Number of Russian asylum seekers in Europe rose by 73% in 2003

  Russians - mostly Chechens - were easily the top asylum-seeking nationality in 2003, with a total of 33,400 (data from 29 rather than the full 36 industrialized countries), announced the UN refugee agency.

February 25, 2004 15:17

• Olivier Dupuis stops hunger strike

  Today, February 25, a press conference of Olivier Dupuis, the Radical Member of the European Parliament, is to be held at the conference hall of the European Parliament.

February 25, 2004 14:54

• Congress of Meskhetian Turks in Baku

  Congress participants appealed to the Georgian leadership and international organizations to provide the return of Meskhetian Turks to their native lands in Meskhetia, Georgia.

February 25, 2004 14:53

• International Helsinki Federation condemns break-up of meeting in Moscow to oppose armed conflict in Chechnya

  "There is no legal basis for either prohibiting this peaceful meeting or for breaking it up," stated Dr. Rhodes, Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation (IHF).

February 25, 2004 13:26

• Human Rights Watch: White House needs to raise rights concerns during Saakashvili's visit

  High-level official statements promising and praising the harshest methods to fight corruption may encourage violations of human rights, Human Rights Watch said.

February 24, 2004 23:32

• Internews invites advertisers to work with regional television companies

  "Out of thirteen independent broadcasters currently working in Azerbaijan, nine operate in the regions," said Whit Mason, Internews' Country Director in Azerbaijan.

February 24, 2004 23:19

• Opposition in Kalmykia arranges march to Moscow

  The Executive Committee of the Extraordinary Congress of the People of Kalmykia, founded in January 2003 to remove Kirsan Ilyumzhinov from the Kalmyk presidency, intends to arrange a march to Moscow at the end of February.

February 24, 2004 23:08

• Frodo NGO takes baton from outlawed School of Peace

  The Krasnodar Regional Court has denied the appeal by the Novorossiysk Fund "School of Peace" against the decision of a district court on the liquidation of the Fund.

February 24, 2004 22:29

• Office of party in opposition to Abashidze burnt in Batumi, party's leader beaten

  Unknown people set fire to the regional office of the Christian Democratic Party in the capital of Adjaria, Batumi, on February 22.

February 24, 2004 20:47

• Valery Yevnevich: CIS peacekeeping contingent is force capable of providing peace in CIS countries

  The general was quoted as saying "only the presence of the CIS PKF (Peacekeeping Forces) in conflict areas can guarantee security for civilians and facilitate the process of peaceful adjustment between conflict parties."

February 24, 2004 20:28

• Survey: should Russian authorities apologize for 1944 deportation of Chechens and Ingushetians?

  Altogether 3,851 phone calls were received by Echo Moskvy Radio for 5 minutes of the survey.