Interfax reported on January 15 that leading human rights groups had called on Austrian authorities to investigate the January 13 murder in Vienna of Umar Israilov, a 27-year-old former Chechen rebel who surrendered and briefly served as a bodyguard to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov before... MORE

Stanislav Markelov, the human rights lawyer who represented the family of Elza Kungaeva, the 18-year-old Chechen woman murdered by Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov in the Chechen village of Tangi-Chu in March 2000, was also murdered in Moscow on January 19. Markelov, who was the founder... MORE

Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza could not go unnoticed in Muslim Azerbaijan. The images of women and children dying in the military attacks produced a high level of anger and frustration among the ordinary people. Although the majority of the population strongly condemns the Israeli... MORE

The Council of Europe looks set to impose embarrassing sanctions on Armenia over its failure to release dozens of opposition activists arrested following the February 2008 presidential election. The move would deal a massive blow to the credibility of the Armenian government’s assurances that its... MORE

In Karachay-Cherkessia, the unstable republic in Russia’s North Caucasus with a population of less than 450,000, the political year and preparations for elections to the local parliament began with a tragic start. On Tuesday, January 13, the vice speaker of the parliament and leader of... MORE

The profiles of those who join the ranks of the resistance fighters in the North Caucasus have often been young and for the most part either come from rural areas or have gone over to the resistance in order to take revenge for a murder... MORE

An explosion on January 13 at a building in Nazran that housed the offices of Ingushetia’s bailiffs’ service killed eight people and injured 23. The Associated Press quoted Marat Prokopenkov of the Emergency Situations Ministry's branch in southern Russia as saying that an initial investigation... MORE

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov declared on January 13 that he categorically opposes the decision to grant parole to Yuri Budanov, the Russian colonel who was convicted in 2003 of murdering an 18-year-old Chechen woman, Elza Kungaeva, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A Russian... MORE