BRIEFS

–ACTIVISTS DEMAND PROBE INTO DAGESTANI PROTEST VIOLENCE

The For Human Rights movement said on May 3 that it had written to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov calling on him to investigate an April 25 incident in which police in Dagestan used force against protesters, killing at least one person (see Chechnya Weekly, April 27). According to the Associated Press, the group added that prosecutors should also start criminal proceedings for abuse of power by officials responsible for the police action. Dagestani police said one of the protesters was killed and 12 people were wounded, mostly police officers. For Human Rights said a second protester had died three days later from his wounds and five others were hospitalized.

–PRO-SEPARATIST JOURNALIST ARRESTED

The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations watchdog on May 3 condemned the arrest of Boris Stomakhin, editor of the publication Radikalnaya politika, or Radical Politics, and a contributing author of the separatist Kavkazcenter website. The Associated Press quoted Stomakhin’s mother, Regina Stomakhina, as saying her son had been in a Moscow jail since being detained on March 21 on charges of evading investigation after he failed to show up for a psychiatric examination that investigators requested in connection with his activities in 2004.

–OVER 700 PARATROOPERS KILLED IN NORTH CAUCASUS SINCE 1999

Airborne Forces Commander Col. Gen. Alexander Kolmakov said that Russia’s Airborne Forces lost over 700 men in Chechnya and Dagestan from December 1999 to April 2006, Interfax reported. “The combat losses of our troops during the military conflict in Chechnya and Dagestan totals 731, including 106 officers, 19 non-commissioned officers and 606 sergeants and soldiers,” he told a press conference. “We suffered most of these losses during the active phase of the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.”