Lev Ponomaryov, 68-year-old director of the For Human Rights movement, was sentenced to three days of administrative custody. Judge Pronjakin found him guilty of refusal to obey police orders and attempting to stage an unsanctioned march with the Russian banner.

Resolution on Russia Submitted by the Finnish PEN Centre and seconded bythe Russian and Danish PEN Centres The Assembly of Delegates of International PEN, meeting at its 76th International Congress in Tokyo, Japan, 25th September - 1st October 2010.

31 July. 6 pm. Moscow, Triumfalnaya Square. Nizhny Novgorod, Freedom Square. Rostov-on-Don, Gorky Park. Kaliningrad, Victory Square. Ryazan, Lenin Square. More than 40 regions have joined the Strategy 31 by now.

The list of reporters who have been murdered while uncovering organized crime in Moscow or reporting on the war in Chechnya is chillingly long. An article by Clifford Levy in The Times this week describes the bravery of journalists who have been brutally attacked for reporting on local corruption.

"I have learned with deep concern the disturbing news of the sentencing of the human rights activist Alexey Sokolov on 13 May 2010 to five years' imprisonment sentence in high security prison colony on the alleged crime of theft and robbery", said chair of the EP Subcommittee on Human Rights.

The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the withdrawal of the charges faced by Ms. Anastasia Denisova, President of ETHnICS, a Krasnodar-based youth group promoting tolerance. Over the past months, Ms. Anastasia Denisova was subjected to repeated acts of harassment.

The web site of dissident author Eduard Limonov became accessible again for users of a major Internet provider after it emerged that the site had only been unavailable because it shared an IP provider with other sites banned as extremist.

Regional prosecutors should immediately investigate the brutal attack on Monday on Arkady Lander, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Mestnaya (Local) in the southern city of Sochi, and bring his assailants to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On April 14, 2010 "For Courage" international prize presentation ceremony happened in Jakarta (Indonesia). This year the laureates come from four NGO's from different countries, among them – human rights defenders from North Caucasus.

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), a member of OMCT SOS-Torture Network, about the illegal transfer of Mr. Albert Saaev, 28 years old computer expert and known hacker.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the largest network of NGOs fighting against torture, is writing to you to express its serious concern about the situation of Mr. Magomed Khazbiev, a well-known Ingush opposition leader and journalist.

Reporters Without Borders condemns today’s abortive attempt by the Moscow police to search the premises of the Moscow-based independent weekly New Times/Novoye Vremya in execution of a court order that is the subject of an appeal by the weekly.

Russian authorities have issued a federal warrant for the arrest of three brothers of the Ingush opposition leader and independent journalist, Magomed Khazbiev, The Caucasian Knot reported. Two of Khazbiev's close colleagues have been murdered.

Arguing that the only way out for Russia is the complete overhaul of the system of power Vladimir Putin has put in place, leaders of Russia’s so-called “extra-systemic” opposition are circulating an 870-word petition on the Internet calling for the ouster of the from any position of power in the country.

Editor-in-Chief Nadira Isayeva and reporters Magomed Magomedov, Artur Mamayev, Timur Mustafayev, and Biyakai Magomedov are charged with incitement of hatred and demeaning the honor of law enforcement officials as a “social group” in several stories published in Chernovik in 2008.

On the 7th of March human rights defender from the Finnish "Russian-Chechen Friendship Society" Oksana Chelysheva wrote an article on Russia's famous writer and opposition politic Eduard Limonov, persecuted by the authorities for their activities.

At the 5th of march has learned that the citizens of Russia, Malik and Khadijat Gataevy appealed to the leadership of the Republic of Lithuania about the actions of the security police engaged in provocations against them.

Ali Dzhaniev, Magomed Adzhiev, Yusup Dobriev and Yunus Dobriev, all four relatives of Ms. Fatima Dzhanieva, widow of the well-known activist from Ingushetia, Mr. Maksharip Aushev, killed on 25 October 2009, in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.

A group of Russians who have been forced to flee their homeland because of political persecution have formed a Union of Political Émigrés in the Ukrainian capital, the latest and in some ways most curious and disturbing case in the long history of political emigration from Russia.

Accounts by Russian officials of a counterterrorism operation in Ingushetia's Sunzha district last week differ from local reports of what happened. Local police and security officials initially said that between 14 and 18 Islamic militants were killed in fighting on February 11-12.

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities investigating the July 2009 murder of prominent Russian journalist and human rights defender Natalya Estemirova to publicize their progress on the case seven months after the crime.

As tomorrow’s closing ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics turns the spotlight on Sochi, the host of the next Winter Games in 2014, Reporters Without Borders would like to cast its own light on the situation of the news media in this Black Sea city and in Krasnodar.

On 27 February 2010 Vadim Karastelejov (aged 44), an expert with Novorossijsk Human Rights Committee, was assaulted by two people armed with clubs. He has suffered serious head injuries and was taken to hospital where he was operated the same day. Doctors find his condition as serious.

The scholar Igor Sutyagin expresses his thanks to everyone who haswritten to him. Sutyagin, recognized as a political prisoner by Amnesty International, is serving a 15-year sentence for fabricated charges inthe difficult conditions of a penal colony in the northern Arkhangelsk region.

Yulia Privedennaia, a civil society activist and leading member of a group whose stated aim is to promote a happier society, has been sent to a psychiatric hospital by a Moscow court. Independent psychiatrists say that there was no basis for hospitalizing her.

OMCT takes note of the announcement of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's decision to withdraw the complaints filed against two prominent human rights defenders, but remains concerned about the continuing threats faced by defenders in the Chechen Republic.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), condemns the arbitrary arrest of at least 100 protesters, including Mr. Oleg Orlov, at a peaceful demonstration in Moscow.

The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the repeated assaults committed against Mr. Alexei Sokolov, Head of the organisation “Pravovaja osnova” (Legal Basis), which struggles against torture and ill-treatment of people in detention.

Ms. Anastasia Denisova, President of ETHnICS, a Krasnodar-based youth group promoting tolerance, and also a member of the Krasnodar section of the Memorial Human Rights Centre was searched during more than three hours by police officers from the Krasnodar Crimes Department.

After the 2009 European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was awarded on December 16 to the Human Rights Centre “Memorial” as well as to Mr. Oleg Orlov, Mr. Sergei Kovalev and Ms. Lyudmila Alexeyeva.