A court in Moscow sentenced a student activist to 8 1/2 years in prison for social media posts criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine, the latest step in a sweeping crackdown on dissent unleashed by the Kremlin. Dmitry Ivanov, 23, was convicted of spreading false information about the Russian army, which was made a criminal offense under a new law that Russian lawmakers rubber-stamped a week after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. The legislation has been used to prosecute individuals who deviate from the government’s official narrative of the conflict that the Kremlin insists on calling “a special military operation.” Prominent opposition politicians, such as Ilya Yashin, who is serving an 8 1/2 prison term, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is in jail awaiting trial, also were charged with spreading false information about the military. Also Read: A year into Ukraine war, bodies dug up in once occupied town Ivanov was charged over a number of social media posts in his Telegram channel that called Russia’s campaign in Ukraine a “war” and talked about Russian forces attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, committing war crimes in the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, and targeting the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Most were reposts from other sources. At the time of his April 2022 arrest, Ivanov was a student at Lomonosov Moscow State University, one of Russia’s top universities also known as the MSU. He ran a popular Telegram channel called Protest MSU, which was launched in 2018 to cover student protests against the construction next to the university’s main building of a fan zone for the Russia-hosted World Cup soccer tournament. Ivanov initially was jailed for 10 days on the charge of organizing an unauthorized rally. Authorities jailed him again on the same charge for 25 days, and then he was arrested over the social media posts. Also Read: Russians mark Ukraine war anniversary with flowers, arrests While in custody, the student missed his final exams and failed to submit his final dissertation. He was expelled from the university. During Ivanov’s trial, in an unusual twist the court approved a defense request to subpoena Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov and Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya. Ivanov’s lawyers argued that since the authorities had used the officials’ statements to prove that Ivanov’s social media posts contained false information, they should be deposed in court. However, neither of the three complied with the subpoenas to appear in court. In his final address to the court last week, Ivanov rejected the charges against him as “looking absurd” and said the crime he was prosecuted for “shouldn’t exist at all.” “The investigation, in trying to accuse me of spreading ‘fakes,’ has built one big fake (itself). Literally the entire indictment, from the first to the very last word, contradicts the reality,” Ivanov said. “I, in the meantime, stand by every word I wrote a year ago.”

Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to a lengthy prison term and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage in a closed-door trial, state media reported Tuesday. The website of Iran’s judiciary said a Revolutionary Court sentenced 41-year-old Olivier Vandecasteele to 12.5 years in prison for espionage, 12.5 years for collaboration with hostile governments and 12.5 years for money laundering. He was also fined $1 million and sentenced to 2.5 years for currency smuggling. Under Iranian law, Vandecasteele would be eligible for release after 12.5 years. The judiciary website said the verdicts can be appealed. Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them after secretive trials in which rights groups say they are denied due process. Critics accuse Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West, something Iranian officials deny. Vandecasteele's conviction comes after an Iranian diplomat in Belgium received a 20-year prison sentence in 2021 over masterminding a thwarted bomb attack against an exiled Iranian opposition group in France. Iran has not released any details about the charges against Vandecasteele. It is unclear if they are related to anti-government protests that have convulsed Iran for months or a long-running shadow war with Israel and the U.S. marked by covert attacks on Iran's disputed nuclear program. The nationwide protests began after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating Iran's strict Islamic dress code. Rallying under the slogan “Women, life, freedom,” the protesters say they are fed up with decades of social and political repression. Iran has blamed the protests on foreign powers, without providing evidence. Vandecasteele's family said last month that he has been detained in an Iranian prison for months and has been on a hunger strike. They said he was deprived of access to a lawyer of his choice and is suffering from serious health problems. Belgium has urged its nationals to leave Iran, warning that they face the risk of arbitrary arrest or unfair trial. “Iran has provided no official information regarding the charges against Olivier Vandecasteele or his trial,” Belgium's Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said in a statement. “We will summon the Iranian ambassador today, given the information that is circulating in the press.” “Belgium continues to condemn this arbitrary detention and is doing everything possible to put an end to it and to improve the conditions of his detention,” she said. The anti-government protests, which have continued for nearly four months with no sign of ending, are one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that brought it to power. At least 520 protesters have been killed and more than 19,300 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests. Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests, including attacks on security forces. They were convicted in Revolutionary Courts, which do not allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or see the evidence against them. London-based Amnesty International has said such trials bear “no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding." Norway and Denmark summoned Iranian ambassadors this week to protest the executions and Iran's handling of the demonstrations. "What is happening in Iran is completely unacceptable and must stop," Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. “We have strongly condemned the executions. ... We have called on Iran to end the use of the death penalty and to respect human rights.” In Denmark, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the executions “completely unacceptable" and said the European Union should impose additional sanctions on Iran. Separately on Tuesday, the state-run IRNA news agency said Iran’s intelligence ministry arrested six teams of operatives linked to Mossad, Israel's chief intelligence and secret-service agency. Without providing evidence, the report said the spy teams planned to assassinate an unnamed high-ranking military official and had carried out several sabotage operations in the country’s big cities. The report also said security forces identified 23 alleged members of these teams and had arrested 13 of them who were in the country.

A Naogaon court on Wednesday sentenced 10 people, including five brothers, to life imprisonment for the 2013 murder of a farmer over the ownership of a deep tube well in Badalgachhi upazila. Judge Ferdous Wahid of Naogaon Additional District and Sessions Judge Court-2 gave the order during a hearing in the presence of the accused. He also fined them Tk20,000 each, in default of which they will have to serve two more years in jail, state lawyer Md Abdu Baki said. The court, however, cleared three people of charges as they were not proven guilty, he added. Read more: 5 get life term for murder in Faridpur The lifers are Kamruzzaman, his brothers Wahed Ali, Shamsuzzaman, Rocket and Dablu; Abdul Hamid and his brother Enamul Hoque; Mosharraf Hossain, Bajlur Rahman and Emdadul Hoque from the village Durgapur. Bajlur's wife Karima Begum, Enamul's wife Joly Akter and Md Jibon Ahmed of the same village were cleared of charges.  According to the case statement, two groups of villagers had been at loggerheads over the ownership of the deep tube well in Durgapur. A group of armed men led by Kamruzzaman swooped on farmer Ujjal Hossain and three others over it, leaving them critically injured, on May 9, 2013. Read more: 7 get life term for murder in Chattogram Ujjal succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital four days later. On the following day, the village's Deep Tube Well Association General Secretary Majharul Islam filed a murder case accusing 13 people at Badalgachhi Police Station.

A huge fire blazed Saturday at a notorious prison where political prisoners and anti-government activists are kept in the Iranian capital, injuring at least nine people, according to state media. Online videos and local media reported gunshots, as nationwide protests entered a fifth week. Iran’s state-run IRNA reported there were clashes between prisoners in one ward and prison personnel, citing a senior security official. The official said prisoners set fire to a warehouse full of prison uniforms, which caused the blaze. He said the “rioters” were separated from the other prisoners to de-escalate the conflict. Read:Iranians living abroad march on streets supporting anti-government protests at home The official said that the “situation is completely under control” and that firefighters were extinguishing the flames. Later, Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi said that “peace” had returned to the prison and that the unrest was not related to the protests which have swept the country for four weeks. IRNA later reported nine people had been injured, without elaborating. It published video showing burnt debris scattered around a building, with firefighters spraying down the blaze’s embers. Footage of the fire circulated online. Videos showed shots ringing out as plumes of smoke rose into the sky amid the sound of an alarm. A protest broke out on the street soon after, with many chanting “Death to the Dictator!” — a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and burning tires, circulating videos showed. Witnesses said that police blocked roads and highways to Evin prison and that at least three strong explosions were heard coming from the area. Traffic was heavy along major motorways near the prison, which is in the north of the capital, and many people honked to show their solidarity with protests. Riot police were seen riding on motorbikes toward the facility, as were ambulances and firetrucks. Witnesses reported that the internet was blocked in the area. The U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that an “armed conflict” broke out within the prison walls. It said shots were first heard in Ward 7 of the prison. This account could not immediately be corroborated. The prison fire occurred as protesters intensified anti-government demonstrations along main streets and at universities in some cities across Iran on Saturday. Human rights monitors reported hundreds dead, including children, as the movement concluded its fourth week. Demonstrators also chanted “Down with the Dictator” on the streets of Ardabil in the country’s northwest. Outside of universities in Kermanshah, Rasht and Tehran, students rallied, according to videos on social media. In the city of Sanandaj, a hotspot for demonstrations in the northern Kurdish region, school girls chanted, “Woman, life, freedom,” down a central street. The protests erupted after public outrage over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained. At least 233 protesters have been killed since demonstrations swept Iran on Sept. 17, according to U.S.-based rights monitor HRANA. The group said 32 among the dead were below the age of 18. Earlier, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights estimated 201 people have been killed. Iranian authorities have provided no death toll for weeks. Iranian authorities have alleged without providing evidence that the unrest is a Western plot, trying to downplay the demonstrations. Read:US imposes more sanctions on Iran over Mahsa Amini's death Public anger in Iran has coalesced around Amini’s death, prompting girls and women to remove their mandatory headscarves on the street in a show of solidarity. Other segments of society, including oil workers, have also joined the movement, becoming one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the country’s 2009 Green Movement. Riots have also broken out in prisons, with clashes reported between inmates and guards in Lakan prison in the northern province of Gilan recently. Evin Prison, which holds detainees facing security-related charges and include dual citizens, has been charged by rights groups with abusing inmates. The facility has long been known for holding political prisoners as well as those with ties to the West who have been used by Iran as bargaining chips in international negotiations. Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American who had been furloughed from prison while serving a 10-year sentence on internationally criticized spying charges, was recently sent back into Evin. His 85-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, was freed and allowed to leave the country. A lawyer for Namazi, Jared Genser, wrote on Twitter early Sunday that Siamak Namazi “is safe and has been moved to a secure area of Evin Prison.” He did not elaborate. In 2018, the prison was slapped with U.S. sanctions. “Prisoners held at Evin Prison are subject to brutal tactics inflicted by prison authorities, including sexual assaults, physical assaults and electric shock,” the U.S. Treasury Department wrote in a statement after announcing the sanctions in 2018. The U.S. State Department was following the reports “with urgency” and was in contact with the Swiss as the protecting power for the U.S., spokesman Ned Price said in a tweet Saturday. “Iran is fully responsible for the safety of our wrongfully detained citizens, who should be released immediately,” he said. President Joe Biden, on a trip to Oregon, said the Iranian “government is so oppressive” and that he had an “enormous amount of respect for people marching in the streets.” Commercial strikes resumed Saturday in key cities across the Kurdish region, including Saqqez, Amini’s hometown and the birthplace of the protests, Bukan and Sanandaj. The government has responded with a brutal crackdown, arresting activists and protest organizers, reprimanding Iranian celebrities for voicing support, even confiscating their passports, and using live ammunition, tear gas and sound bombs to disperse crowds, leading to deaths. In a video widely distributed Saturday, plainclothes Basij, a paramilitary volunteer group, are seen forcing a woman into a car and firing bullets into the air amid a protest in Gohardasht, in northern Iran. Widespread internet outages have also made it difficult for protesters to communicate with the outside world, while Iranian authorities have detained at least 40 journalists since the unrest began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

A Saudi court has sentenced a doctoral student to 34 years in prison for spreading “rumors” and retweeting dissidents, according to court documents obtained Thursday, a decision that has drawn growing global condemnation. Activists and lawyers consider the sentence against Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two and a researcher at Leeds University in Britain, shocking even by Saudi standards of justice. So far unacknowledged by the kingdom, the ruling comes amid Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s crackdown on dissent even as his rule granted women the right to drive and other new freedoms in the ultraconservative Islamic nation. Al-Shehab was detained during a family vacation on Jan. 15, 2021, just days before she planned to return to the United Kingdom, according to the Freedom Initiative, a Washington-based human rights group. Al-Shehab told judges she had been held for over 285 days in solitary confinement before her case was even referred to court, the legal documents obtained by The Associated Press show. The Freedom Initiative describes al-Shehab as a member of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite Muslim minority, which has long complained of systematic discrimination in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. “Saudi Arabia has boasted to the world that they are improving women’s rights and creating legal reform, but there is no question with this abhorrent sentence that the situation is only getting worse,” said Bethany al-Haidari, the group’s Saudi case manager. Leading human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Thursday slammed al-Shehab’s trial as “grossly unfair” and her sentence as “cruel and unlawful.” Read: : Khashoggi killing: CIA did not blame Saudi crown prince, says Trump Since rising to power in 2017, Prince Mohammed has accelerated efforts to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil with massive tourism projects — most recently plans to create the world’s longest buildings that would stretch for more than 100 miles in the desert. But he has also faced criticism over his arrests of those who fail to fall in line, including dissidents and activists but also princes and businessmen. Judges accused al-Shehab of “disturbing public order” and “destabilizing the social fabric” — claims stemming solely from her social media activity, according to an official charge sheet. They alleged al-Shehab followed and retweeted dissident accounts on Twitter and “transmitted false rumors.” The specialized criminal court handed down the unusually harsh 34-year sentence under Saudi counterterrorism and cybercrime laws, to be followed by a 34-year travel ban. The decision came earlier this month as al-Shehab appealed her initial sentence of six years. “The (six-year) prison sentence imposed on the defendant was minor in view of her crimes,” a state prosecutor told the appeals court. “I’m calling to amend the sentence in light of her support for those who are trying to cause disorder and destabilize society, as shown by her following and retweeting (Twitter) accounts.” The Saudi government in Riyadh, as well as its embassies in Washington and London, did not respond to a request for comment. Leeds University confirmed that al-Shehab was in her final year of doctoral studies at the medical school. “We are deeply concerned to learn of this recent development in Salma’s case and we are seeking advice on whether there is anything we can do to support her,” the university said. Al-Shehab’s sentencing also drew the attention of Washington, where the State Department said Wednesday it was “studying the case.” “Exercising freedom of expression to advocate for the rights of women should not be criminalized, it should never be criminalized,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed concern on Twitter Thursday that the kingdom targeted al-Shehab “for her peaceful activism in solidarity w/political prisoners,” as well as for her Shiite identity. Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to the oil-rich kingdom and held talks with Prince Mohammed in which he said he raised human rights concerns. Their meeting — and much-criticized fist-bump — marked a sharp turn-around from Biden’s earlier vow to make the kingdom a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. During her appeal, al-Shehab said the harsh judgement was tantamount to the “destruction of me, my family, my future, and the future of my children.” She has two young boys, aged 4 and 6. She told judges she had no idea that simply retweeting posts “out of curiosity and to observe others’ viewpoints,” from a personal account with no more than 2,000 followers, constituted terrorism.  

At least 13 inmates were killed and another two injured in a prison riot on Monday in the Ecuadorean city of Santo Domingo following a fight among inmates in the prison. The National Police, the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Public Health were called to the emergency and the situation was brought under control, the National Comprehensive Care Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty said in a report. The same prison was hit by violence on May 9, resulting in the death of 44 inmates. Read: Earthquake shakes Ecuador’s coast, teen killed by power line The Ecuadorean prison system has been afflicted with a serious crisis due to confrontations between rival drug trafficking gangs. In 2021, the country saw a wave of prison riots that left more than 300 inmates dead. The government has declared a crackdown on drug trafficking. 

Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was transferred Wednesday from a secret detention location to a prison in the country’s capital, legal officials familiar with her case said. Her ongoing court cases will be tried at a new facility constructed in the prison compound, they said. Suu Kyi was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She was initially held at her residence in the capital, but was later moved to at least one other location, and for about the past year has been held at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyitaw, generally assumed to be on a military base. She has been tried on multiple charges, including corruption, at a special court in Naypyitaw that began hearings on May 24, 2021. Each of the 11 corruption counts she faces is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Read: Myanmar court sentences Suu Kyi to 5 years for corruption Already she has been sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment after being convicted on charges of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions. In addition to the corruption cases that are underway, she also has been charged with election fraud and violating the Officials Secrets Act. Suu Kyi’s supporters and rights groups say the charges against her are politically motivated and are an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power while keeping her from returning to politics. Many senior members of her government and party were also arrested and tried, and several are co-defendants in some of her cases. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a private organization that tracks government killings and arrests, a total of 11,174 people are currently in detention for suspected opposition to the ruling military council. Suu Kyi, who turned 77 on Sunday, spent about 15 years in detention under a previous military government, but virtually all of it was under house arrest at her family home in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Three legal officials said Suu Kyi’s lawyers were informed Tuesday that a new building at the prison has been completed and all Suu Kyi's remaining court hearings will be held there starting on Thursday. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release any information about her cases. Read:ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar urged to meet Aung San Suu Kyi One of the officials said the government intended to put her in solitary confinement after her first conviction last year, but had to wait until the new facilities at the main prison in Naypyitaw were completed. No government spokesperson was available to confirm Suu Kyi's move. The secret location where she had been held for about the past year was a residence where she had nine people to help with her living arrangements, along with a dog that was a gift arranged by one of her sons. Australian economist Sean Turnell, who was an adviser to Suu Kyi, is being held at the same prison where Suu Kyi was sent. Turnell and Suu Kyi are being prosecuted in the same case under the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years, so both are to appear at the court inside the prison on Thursday. In addition to the 11 counts of corruption, Suu Kyi and several colleagues have been charged with election fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.

How many people are there in Bangladesh with the same name? Maybe uncountable! But Hasina Begum is now in deep trouble for not having a unique name.  Hasina Begum has been languishing in the prison here for the last one and a half years just because her first name is similar to an accused. Hasina Begum, wife of Hamid Hossain of Teknaf upazila in Cox’s Bazar district, has been serving the jail term instead of the real convict in a narcotic case as law enforcers arrested her wrongly for the similarity of her name to the convict’s. The incident came in the limelight on Sunday as defence lawyer Golam Mawla Murad drew the attention of the Judge of Chattogram Additional Metropolitan and Session Court -4, Shariful Alam Bhuiya, following a police investigation. Also read: HC verdict on Jaha Alam’s compensation on Sept 29 However, the court asked the jail authorities to submit a report by May 4 about the similarity and dissimilarity in the names of the convict and the innocent woman.  Advocate Murad said, “No case was filed against Hasina Begum, now in jail. But for the last one and a half years she has been languishing in jail. Her only offence is the similarity of her name to that of the real accused. Their parents’ names are also different.” Murad also filed a petition seeking the immediate release of innocent Hasina Begum and the court took cognisance of the plea and asked the jail super to submit a report in this regard by May 4. Hasina Begum, now in the lock-up, is the wife of Hamid Hossain of Teknaf upazila in Cox’s Bazar district while the real convict, Hasina Akther, is the wife of Hamid Hossain of Ismail Hazi Bari of the same upazila. Also read: HC bans film on Jaha Alam According to the court, police recovered 2,000 Yaba pills from Moijjartek in Karnaphuli on February 24, 2017. A case was filed in this connection. Later, police arrested Hasina Akhter on February 25, 2017 in this connection. On November 27, Hasina Akhter secured bail from the court and went into hiding. On July 1, 2019, Judge of Chattogram Metropolitan Court-5 Jannatul Ferdous sentenced six years’ jail to Hasina Akhter and fined Tk 5,000. On December 26, 2019, police wrongly arrested Hasina Begum from Chowdhurypara Hossain Boro Bari in Teknaf in the case and she has been in jail since then. Mohammad Khorshed Alam, inspector (operation) of Teknaf Model Police Station, said they primarily suspected that Hasina, now in jail, is not the real convict but could not investigate properly as the victim’s husband is on the run. Chattogram Central Jail authorities said real convict Hasina Akhter served jail for nine months. Besides, the images of the convict and the victim are different.  

A former civil surgeon of Chattogram was sent to prison on Wednesday over a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for embezzling 9.15 crore.

Nearly a year after he was bailed out of jail while facing corruption charges, former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was taken back into custody on Wednesday after an appeals court sentenced him to a lengthier prison term of 17 year over bribery, embezzlement and other convictions.