- Russian artist jailed for seven years over anti-war price tag protest Al Jazeera English
- Russia Sentences Activist to Penal Colony for Antiwar Notes on Price Tags The New York Times
- Russian artist receives seven-year sentence for anti-war protest CNN
- Russia says artist was spreading misinformation about military | WION WION
- Hard Numbers: Russian artist pays “price” for anti-war campaign, West Bank settler violence surges, US “lawmakers” fail to live up to the name, Liberians make their choice, Starbucks employees go on strike GZERO Media
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Tag Archives: jailed
The family of a Palestinian activist jailed for incitement says young woman’s account was hacked – Yahoo News
- The family of a Palestinian activist jailed for incitement says young woman’s account was hacked Yahoo News
- Over 150 Killed in West Bank Since Oct. 7.; Prominent Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Arrested Democracy Now!
- Palestine Activist, Who Slapped Israeli Soldier When She Was A Teen, Held In West Bank | Gaza War Hindustan Times
- Prominent Palestinian protester Ahed Tamimi detained by Israeli troops over ‘fake’ Instagram post Sky News
- Israeli troops arrest Palestinian activist in West Bank over ‘inciting violence’ India Today
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Zelensky calls for jailed Mikheil Saakashvili to be sent to Ukraine – The Washington Post
- Zelensky calls for jailed Mikheil Saakashvili to be sent to Ukraine The Washington Post
- Emaciated and imprisoned, former Georgian President Saakashvili tells court he is spiritually fit Yahoo News
- Ukraine accuses Georgia of `torturing` jailed ex-president Saakashvili, tells Georgian ambassador to go home WION
- Ukraine sends Georgian ambassador home amid warnings ex-President Saakashvili could die in jail POLITICO Europe
- Zelensky Accuses Russia of Trying to Kill Georgia’s Former President Saakashvili The New York Times
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After Wagner mutiny, Navalny asks why he, not Prigozhin, is jailed – The Washington Post
- After Wagner mutiny, Navalny asks why he, not Prigozhin, is jailed The Washington Post
- Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny thought people were joking about the Wagner revolt and that it was just an ‘Internet meme’ Yahoo News
- What Do Russians Think of Prigozhin’s Rebellion? The Moscow Times
- Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny thought Wagner revolt was a ‘joke’ South China Morning Post
- After Wagner Mutiny, Jailed Kremlin Critic Navalny Asks Who Is the Real Extremist? U.S. News & World Report
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Ex-Minneapolis firefighter accused of attacking Gopher football alum jailed again after pursuit – Star Tribune
- Ex-Minneapolis firefighter accused of attacking Gopher football alum jailed again after pursuit Star Tribune
- Minnesota man accused of attacking ex-football player cut off ankle monitor, led police on chase Fox News
- Minnesota man accused of attacking ex-football player cut off ankle monitor, led cops on chase msnNOW
- Retired firefighter charged in assault of former Gophers player arrested again FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
- Police: Former Minneapolis firefighter cut off ankle monitor, fled officers before arrest KSTP
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Iranian couple filmed dancing in Tehran are jailed for 10 years | Iran
An Iranian court has handed jail sentences of more than 10 years each to a young couple who danced in front of one of Tehran’s main landmarks in a video seen as a symbol of defiance against the regime, activists have said.
Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, both in their early 20s, were arrested in early November after a video went viral showing them dancing romantically in front of the Azadi Tower.
Haghighi was not wearing a headscarf, in defiance of Iran’s strict rules. Women are also not allowed to dance in public, let alone with a man.
A revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced them each to 10 years and six months in prison, as well as imposing bans on using the internet and leaving Iran, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.
The couple, who already had a following in Tehran as popular Instagram bloggers, were convicted of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” as well as “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security”, it said.
HRANA cited sources close to their families as saying they had been deprived of lawyers during the court proceedings, and attempts to secure their release on bail had been rejected.
It said Haghighi was now in Qarchak prison for women, outside Tehran, whose conditions are regularly condemned by activists.
Iranian authorities have clamped down severely on all forms of dissent since Mahsa Amini’s death in September. The death of Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the headscarf rules, sparked protests that have turned into a movement against the regime.
At least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the United Nations, ranging from prominent celebrities, journalists and lawyers to ordinary people who took to the streets.
The couple’s video had been hailed as a symbol of the freedoms demanded by the protest movement, with Ahmadi at one moment lifting his partner in the air as her long hair flowed behind.
One of the main icons of the Iranian capital, the futuristic Azadi (Freedom) Tower is a place of huge sensitivity. It opened under the rule of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in the early 1970s, when it was known as the Shahyad (In Memory of the Shah) Tower.
It was renamed after the shah was ousted in 1979 with the creation of the Islamic republic. Its architect, a member of the Bahá’í faith, which is not recognised in today’s Iran, now lives in exile.
Former Swedish intelligence officer jailed for life for spying for Russia | Sweden
A court in Stockholm has sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life imprisonment and his younger brother to 10 years after finding both guilty of spying for Russia’s military intelligence service for more than a decade.
Peyman Kia, 42, served in the Swedish security and counter-intelligence service, Säpo, and in armed forces intelligence agencies, including the foreign intelligence agency (Must) and KSI, a top-secret unit dealing with Swedish spies abroad.
He was found guilty of aggravated espionage and unauthorised handling of classified documents. The judge, Måns Wigén, said Kia had abused the trust placed in him in order to aid Russia, the country posing “the biggest threat to Sweden”.
His brother Payam, 35, was convicted of aggravated espionage for planning the crime and managing contacts with Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, passing on 45 of the 90 documents Peyman was found to have gathered.
The court said they had “jointly and in concertation, without authorisation and to assist Russia and the GRU, acquired, forwarded and shared information whose disclosure to a foreign power could be detrimental to Sweden’s security”.
The Iranian-born brothers, both of whom hold Swedish citizenship, have denied the charges and are expected to appeal against them. They were arrested in 2021 when Säpo suspected it had a mole and accused them of having spied for Moscow since 2011.
Much of the evidence, court hearing, and full decision was not made public for national security reasons, and the court conceded that despite evidence including USB sticks, laptops and mobile phones, “some pieces of the puzzle are missing”.
It found that in 2016-17, Peyman Kia handled cash worth about 550,000 kronor (£43,000), most of it in US dollars, which it said most likely represented payment from Russia.
The verdict followed the spectacular pre-dawn arrest late last year in a wealthy Stockholm suburb of a Russian couple suspected of carrying out “illegal intelligence activities” against Sweden and the US – also for more than 10 years.
The “wholly unremarkable” pair, who have not been formally named by Swedish authorities, reportedly arrived in Sweden in 1997, acquired Swedish nationality and ran an IT and communications equipment import-export firm.
A Stockholm court ordered the man to be held on suspicion of “aggravated illegal intelligence activities against Sweden and a foreign power”, but released his partner – suspected of being his accomplice – pending inquiries. Both deny all the allegations.
Swedish media has speculated that the couple’s alleged connections to Moscow’s intelligence community mean they were almost certainly sleeper agents, and the public prosecutor, Henrik Olin, has said the husband was “linked to the GRU”.
Peru’s ex-president Castillo to be jailed for 18 months as protesters declare ‘insurgency’
CNN
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Peru’s ousted former president Pedro Castillo will remain in pretrial detention for 18 months, the country’s Supreme Court ordered on Thursday, as crowds of his supporters protested outside the courthouse and around the country.
Castillo, a former teacher and union leader from rural Peru, was impeached and removed from office last week after he attempted to dissolve Congress and install an emergency government – a tactic that lawmakers slammed as an attempted coup.
He has since been accused of rebellion and conspiracy, which he denies.
The lengthy detention reflects the complexity of the case and possible flight risk, Supreme Court Judge Juan Carlos Checkley said, after prosecutors warned that the ex-president might seek asylum outside the country and said 18 months would cover the duration of their investigation. Castillo’s lawyers say that the former leader is not a flight risk.
Castillo himself did not speak in court. But in another hearing earlier this week, he defended his actions, saying “I have never committed the crime of conspiracy or rebellion” and adding that he still considered himself president.
“I will never resign and abandon this popular cause,” he said at the time.
In the days since his removal from office, Castillo’s supporters have taken to the streets in cities across the Andean nation, in what some protesters described as a “national insurgency.”
“Peru has declared ourselves in a state of insurgency, a national insurgency, because we do not owe obedience to a usurping government,” one protester in Lima said Thursday, referring to Castillo’s successor and former vice president Dina Boluarte, who was swiftly sworn into the presidency by Congress hours after her former boss’s impeachment.
Another protester described Peru’s judicial system as “corrupt” and Castillo’s detention as a kidnapping.
“(Castillo) is kidnapped, we are outraged, it’s the national insurgency in Peru,” she told news agency Reuters.
At least 11 people have died amid the demonstrations. On Thursday, four were killed and at least 39 injured after protesters clashed with police near an airport in Peru’s southern region of Ayacucho, according to the local health department.
Peru’s current government has responded to protesters with both stick and carrot. President Boluarte has offered the possibility of holding early elections, while her Defense Minister Luis Alberto Otárola this week declared a state of emergency and deployed troops to the street.
But efforts so far to dampen the protests appear to have failed to address protesters’ central complaints, which see the country’s political landscape as corrupt and disorganized, and accuse Peru’s elite of unjustly overturning their elected leader.
“If the people of Congress consider themselves so democratic, then respect the people’s voice, respect that we voted for (Castillo),” protester Sonia Castaneda told Reuters.
Demonstrators have also called for a general election, the dissolution of Congress, and the creation of a new constituent assembly.
Their anger has been amplified by some leftist leaders in the region. In a joint statement on Monday, the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia expressed concern over Castillo’s fate, claiming he had been a victim of “undemocratic harassment” since his election last year and urging Peru to honor the results of last year’s presidential vote.
Peru responded on Thursday by summoning ambassadors for a consultation over “interference” in Peru’s “internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi said on social media.
Castillo – who prior to becoming president had never previously held public office – campaigned on a promise to redistribute wealth and uplift the country’s poorest.
But his government was mired in chaos, with dozens of ministers appointed, replaced, fired or quitting their posts in little over a year. Castillo himself faced multiple corruption investigations and two failed impeachment attempts before he was ousted last week.
Ilya Yashin: Kremlin critic jailed for eight and a half years, in latest blow to what’s left of Russian opposition
CNN
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A Moscow court on Friday sentenced Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin to eight years and six months imprisonment, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti, in a blow to what’s left of the country’s opposition.
It is unclear if Yashin’s prison sentence for spreading “false information” about the Russian army includes the time he has already spent in jail during court hearings.
Russian investigators say his statements about the circumstances of the killings in Bucha are a criminal offense under recently introduced legislation, which considers discrediting the Russian armed forces to be illegal.
Yashin slammed the “authors” of the “hysterical verdict” in a post on his official Telegram account.
“The authors of the verdict are optimistic about Putin’s prospects. In my opinion, they are too optimistic,” he said.
“But we also have no reason to be sad, because we have won this trial, friends. The process started as a denunciation of me as “people’s doctor,” but turned into an anti-war tribune. We spoke the truth about war crimes and called for an end to the bloodshed. And in response, they heard a hodgepodge of slogans from the Cold War, which was confusedly voiced by the prosecutor,” Yashin continued.
“With this hysterical verdict, the government wants to intimidate us all, but in fact, it only shows its weakness. Strong leaders are calm and self-confident, and only weaklings seek to shut everyone up, burn out any dissent. So today it only remains for me to repeat what was said on the day of my arrest: I am not afraid, and you should not be,” the post read.
In closing remarks to the court on Monday, ahead of the verdict, Yashin made a statement addressing the judge, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian public. “As if they will sew my mouth shut and I would be forbidden to speak forever. Everyone understands that this is the point,” he said.
“I am isolated from society because they want me to be silent. I promise as long as I’m alive I’ll never will be. My mission is to tell the truth. I will not give up the truth even behind bars. After all, quoting the classic: ‘Lie is the religion of slaves.’”
Yashin, also a close ally of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, came to prominence during protests he helped organize between 2011 and 2012 against Putin’s re-election for a third term.
Yashin remained a fierce Putin critic for years to come, also serving as a municipal deputy in a small Moscow municipality before being barred from running for public office again.
In June, he was sentenced to 15 days behind bars for being disobedient to police, charges he described at the time as part of a pressure campaign by the authorities to force him to leave Russia.
Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, an attack several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied any involvement.
After a five-month stay in Germany recovering from the Novichok poisoning, Navalny last year returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 case. Earlier this year, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison on fraud charges he said were politically motivated.
Navalny criticized Yashin’s imprisonment on Friday. “Another shameless and lawless Putin verdict will not silence Ilya and should not intimidate the honest people of Russia,” he said in a statement posted on his social media accounts.
“This is another reason why we must fight, and I have no doubt that we will win in the end.”
Navalny said in the statement Yashin was his “first friend” he made in politics and knew him since the age of 18. “Knowing Yashin for so long, I won’t even try to write something like: “Hold on, Ilya.” And so I know that he did everything right and will endure everything,” he said.
Navalny concluded by saying that he is proud of Yashin and that he and Russia will be free.
Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, who is on Russia’s wanted list and lives in exile in London, told CNN Yashin was “an extremely brave person” who “chose to remain in Russia and to speak against the war.”
He added he believed Yashin was a symbol of Russian resistance against the war.
Jailed Belarus opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova ‘in intensive care’ | Belarus
The jailed Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova has been admitted to intensive care and undergone surgery, her allies have said.
“Maria is in the emergency hospital in Gomel, in the intensive care unit,” said the press service of Viktor Babaryko, another opposition politician.
Kolesnikova father, Alexander Kolesnikov, said his daughter was in a grave but stable condition. The doctors didn’t share her diagnosis or any other details with him about the surgery, Kolesnikov said.
He noted that his daughter looked energetic and cheerful when he last visited her in prison about a month ago.
Kolesnikova’s lawyer said she had been placed in a penitentiary cell before she was taken to the hospital. He didn’t elaborate on her condition.
The lawyer said that authorities had repeatedly rejected his requests to see Kolesnikova at the prison she was being held at.
Kolesnikova was one of a trio of female leaders – with Veronika Tsepkalo and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya – who led historic demonstrations against the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. Massive rallies broke out across Belarus against Lukashenko’s claim to a sixth presidential term.
Kolesnikova was jailed for 11 years after resisting expulsion from Belarus. In September 2020, the country’s KGB security service drove her to the Ukrainian border after putting a sack over her head and pushing her into a minibus, but at the frontier Kolesnikova ripped up her passport so she could not be deported.
Lukashenko’s crack down on the protests led to thousands of arrests and the forced exile or imprisonment of activists and journalists.
“What terrible news. Our dear Masha, we all hope that you will be alright!” said Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the opposition in exile. Kolesnikova, 40, is the only one of the three women still in Belarus.
With Associated Press and AFP