Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill expanding the definition of so-called foreign agents to include anyone who is "under foreign influence," a change that critics say will make it even easier for the state to target its domestic critics.

The law signed on July 14 will come into force on December 1.

Under the old version of the law, prosecutors had to assert that an individual charged as a foreign agent had to receive financial or material assistance from abroad.

Russia has used its so-called foreign agent laws for the past decade to label and punish critics of government policies.

The amended law also broadens the definition of political activities to include a vague clause covering any activities that "contradict the national interests of the Russian Federation."

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Individuals who are officially labeled as foreign agents will no longer be able to receive state grants for creative activities, work as teachers, organize public events, or work for organizations that distribute information.

According to the law, the four existing registries of foreign agents will be merged and a new list will be created to register all individuals tagged as foreign agents.

Among other things, that designation requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and which the government claims are engaged in political activities to register as foreign agents, to publicly identify themselves as such, and to submit to cumbersome audits.

They also must label any content they produce with an intrusive disclaimer or face criminal fines for not doing so. Kremlin critics say the foreign agent designation is also intended to stigmatize any independent civic activity in Russia.

The foreign agent law has been increasingly used by officials to shutter civil society and media groups in Russia.

The original 2012 legislation, which targeted NGOs and rights groups, has since been expanded to target media organizations, individual journalists, YouTube vloggers, and virtually anyone who receives money from outside of Russia and, in the eyes of the Kremlin, voices a political opinion.

Many of RFE/RL's Russian-language services and 18 of its Russian-national journalists have been added to the government's foreign agents lists.

The U.S. government-funded independent broadcaster suspended its physical operations in Russia in March after local tax authorities initiated bankruptcy proceedings against its Russian entity and police intensified pressure on its journalists. The bankruptcy proceedings stemmed from the company's refusal to comply with the labeling mandate or pay the millions of dollars in fines that accrued for not doing so.

RFE/RL has rejected the foreign agent label and insists upon the independence and integrity of its journalism.

The Free Union of Iranian Workers announced on July 13 that about 20 workers from the Sungun copper mine in East Azerbaijan Province have been arrested over the past few days.

The arrests came after riot police on July 7 broke up a strike by hundreds of miners at the country's largest open-pit copper mine. Miners spent three days in tents and cars at the mine complex, demanding better conditions and higher salaries.

The union said the mine's management cooperated with the security agencies in carrying out these arrests.

A video posted to social media purported to show riot police breaking up the strike and detaining miners.

Meanwhile, pensioners and retired government employees continue holding rallies to protest economic conditions despite the government's decision last month to increase some salaries by 10 percent.

Protests were held in Shush, Babol, Kermanshah, Shushtar, and Ahvaz on July 13.

Pensioners and associated groups blame the government for spiraling inflation, high unemployment, and failing to deliver on pledges to significantly increase wages and improve living conditions.

In Shush, retirees spread an empty tablecloth in front of the governor's office, symbolically pointing to the emptiness of their tables while chanting, "Raisi, you liar, what happened to your promises?" -- a reference to President Ebrahim Raisi.

Labor protests in Iran have been on the rise in response to declining living standards, wage arrears, and a lack of insurance support. The labor law in Iran does not recognize the right of workers to form independent unions.

The government's response to the protests has been arrests, violence, and repressions.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

Soori Babaei Chegini, a rights activist protesting the requirement that women wear the hijab in public, was arrested on the evening of July 13, in the city of Qazvin, northwest of Tehran.

According to a social-media report citing Mohammad Reza Moradbehrouzi, Babaei's husband, eight government agents stormed the house of Babaei's brother and arrested her. The officials also confiscated her mobile phone, those of her children, and allegedly threatened her 13-year-old daughter.

Babaei posted a video of herself on social networks on July 12 in support of the "No to mandatory hijab" campaign.

In the video, she said accepting the headscarf was tantamount to a seal of approval of all the "injustices" women face under Islamic law.

A July 5 order by President Ebrahim Raisi to enforce the hijab law has resulted in a new list of restrictions on how women can dress.

In response, activists have launched a social-media campaign under the hashtag #no2hijab to urge people to boycott companies enforcing the tougher restrictions. On July 12, women's rights activists posted videos of themselves publicly removing their veils to coincide with the government’s National Day of Hijab and Chastity.

Babaei was previously summoned to the prosecutor's office due to her protest activities, especially regarding the mandatory hijab.

Her husband was also previously sentenced to one year in prison in absentia on a charge of "insulting the leader of the Islamic republic." He was also ordered to pay a fine of 100 million Iranian rials ($312) after being convicted of "spreading falsehoods with the intention of disturbing the public mind.”

The hijab became compulsory in public for Iranian women and girls over the age of 9 after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Many Iranian women have flouted the rule over the years and pushed the boundaries of what officials say is acceptable clothing.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

MINSK -- A court in Minsk has handed sentences to a Belarusian couple for their participation in an unsanctioned march in August 2020 challenging the official results of disputed presidential poll that handed victory to authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Judge Tatsyana Pirozhnikava of the Moscow district court sentenced the former leader of Malady (Youth) Front opposition movement, Zmitser Dashkevich, to 18 months in prison after convicting him of taking part in "an event that disrupted public order."

Dashkevich's wife, Nasta, who delivered the couple's fourth child last month, was handed a three-year, parole-like sentence.

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The husband and wife refused to testify at their trial, which started on July 11 and which many of their supporters and human rights activists have said was based on trumped-up charges.

The 40-year-old Zmitser Dashkevich was arrested on April 23 after police searched his apartment. His 31-year-old wife, who was pregnant at the time, was charged later but not arrested.

Lukashenka, 67 and in power since 1994, has tightened his grip on the country since a disputed 2020 presidential election by arresting -- sometimes violently -- tens of thousands of people who questioned the official results of the poll.

Fearing for their safety, most opposition members have fled the country.

The West has refused to recognize the results of the election and does not consider Lukashenka the country's legitimate leader. Many countries have imposed sanctions against his government in response to the suppression of dissent.

NUR-SULTAN -- Police in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, have forcibly removed 15 people from the presidential compound after they spent four days and nights there calling for justice for loved ones killed during the violent dispersal of anti-government protests in January.

One of the protesters, Baqytzhan Shyngysbekov, told RFE/RL by phone on July 14 that police officers forced all the protesters into police cars and took them to a police station.

Nur-Sultan police officials refused to comment on the situation, saying they were unaware of the developments.

One day earlier, police prevented the protesters from entering the building after officials denied their request to meet with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev personally to demand that all posthumous terrorism charges against their relatives be dropped and that thorough investigations into their deaths be launched.

The January unrest occurred after a peaceful demonstration against a fuel-price hike in the tightly controlled, oil-rich Central Asian nation's western region of Manghystau on January 2 led to widespread anti-government protests that were violently dispersed by law enforcement and the military.

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Thousands of people were detained during and after the protests, which Toqaev said were caused by "20,000 terrorists" from abroad, a claim for which authorities have provided no evidence.

Human rights groups say the number of killed demonstrators was much higher than any of the various figures provided by officials. The groups have provided evidence that peaceful demonstrators and people who had nothing to do with the protests were among those killed.

The government has not published the names of those killed during or after the unrest -- which led to the removal of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his relatives from the political scene -- and has rejected calls by Kazakh and global human rights groups for an international probe into the deaths.

In late June, Deputy Prosecutor-General Aset Shyndaliev admitted that six people had been tortured to death after being arrested for taking part in the January protests. He said a number of security officers had been arrested in connection with the alleged torture.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said earlier that 25 people were officially considered victims of torture by hot irons during interrogations.

Shyndaliev also said 232 people were killed during the protests. Officials have said 19 law enforcement officers were killed in the clashes.

Russian journalist Pyotr Koronayev, who used to work for the Moscow-based Baza news website, and his wife, Tatyana Kulikova, have crossed the border from Mexico and requested political asylum in the United States.

Baza reported on July 14 that the couple was initially placed in an immigration detention center, but Koronayev was later released, while his wife remained in custody. It was not clear when the couple crossed the border.

According to Baza's report, Koronayev and Kulikova feared for their safety in Russia because of their public statements opposing Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and their support of imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

Last month, Russian journalist Yelizaveta Kirpanova of Novaya gazeta and her husband, Grigory Manucharov, also crossed the Mexican-U.S. border and asked for political asylum in the United States, citing similar reasons.

They were also initially placed in an immigration detention center and then released pending a decision.

Many journalists, politicians, activists, and others have left Russia since the Kremlin launched its wide-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24.

In March, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.

The law envisages sentences of up to 15 years in prison for the distribution of "deliberately false information" about the Russian military that leads to "serious consequences."

It also criminalizes "calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "discrediting such use," with penalties of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.

ST.PETERSBURG -- A court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has arrested a well-known documentary filmmaker, Vsevolod Korolyov, for allegedly "disseminating fake news" about the Russian military.

The city's Vyborg district court ruled on July 13 that Korolyov be held in pretrial detention at least until September 11.

"As for the pretrial restrictions, I do not plan to flee anywhere," Korolyov told the court. "If I wanted to flee, I would have probably done it earlier. I thought about leaving, but I distinguish the country from the government. And this is my country. Now, my country is sick, but sooner or later, everything will be back to normal."

The charge against Korolyov stems from his posts on the VK social network about Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which was launched on February 24.

Korolyov is known for his documentary films about social, political, and economic issues. His last two documentaries were about two women -- artist Aleksandra Skochilenko and journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who are also under arrest for their public position opposing the war in Ukraine.

In early March, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that calls for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about the war.

The law envisages sentences of up to 15 years in prison for individuals convicted of distributing "deliberately false information" about the Russian military that leads to "serious consequences."

The law also criminalizes "calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "discrediting such use," with penalties of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia.

A report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expresses "grave concerns" of alleged mistreatment by the Russian authorities of tens of thousands of Ukrainians who had been forcibly deported from their country and sent to so-called "filtration centers."

"There are reports indicating that people are subject to harsh interrogations and humiliating body searches in such centers," says a 115-page report seen by AFP.

The report calls the establishment of such centers an "alarming" development.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, worldwide reaction, and the plight of civilians and refugees. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

It adds that those found to have collaborated with Ukrainian authorities "often simply disappear," with some allegedly being transferred to Russian-controlled territories, where they are detained or even killed.

"Signs of torture and ill-treatment on the corpses of killed civilians also show disregard of the principle of humanity," it says.

The report was based on information obtained by three experts named by the OSCE covering the Ukraine war from April 1 to June 25.

The Russian Embassy in Washington called the comments an attempt to stoke "Russophobia" and "poor-quality Western disinformation."

"Washington's attempt to vilify the armed forces of the Russian Federation is apparently connected with dissatisfaction with the success of a special military operation," the embassy said in an online post. Moscow refers to its invasion of Ukraine as a "special military operation."

A previous OSCE mission, covering the start of Russia's invasion on February 24 through April 1, found "clear patterns of international humanitarian law violations."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also expressed concerns about the reports, saying Russia must immediately disclose the whereabouts of and release all illegally detained or deported Ukrainians.

"Ukrainian civilians detained by Russian troops not only lose their freedom, but also face threats to their health and lives because they are being held without legal or public control," said Tatyana Lokshina, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at HRW.

The comments come after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 13 accused Russia of forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from areas it controls in the east and south of the country to Russia.

Blinken said an estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, have been interrogated, detained, and deported from their homes into Russia, including to isolated areas in the Far East, through "filtration" operations.

He called on Russia to stop these operations, which he said violate the Geneva Conventions.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and AFP

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said Russia's war in Ukraine represents the "greatest challenge" to the global economy.

“Our greatest challenge today comes from Russia," she told a news conference on July 14 on the resort island of Bali ahead of a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) finance chiefs on July 15-16.

"The international community must be clear-eyed about the economic and humanitarian consequences of [President Vladimir Putin's] war."

Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated inflation pressures, with soaring fuel and food prices hitting a world struggling to emerge economically from the coronavirus pandemic.

Yellen said she will press allies at the meeting to agree on a price cap on Russian oil to reduce the Kremlin's ability to fund its war and to bring down global energy costs.

She did not say if Western finance chiefs would stage a walkout when Russian officials speak at the Indonesian event as they did at a G20 meeting in Washington in April.

"It cannot be business as usual," she said.

"I can tell you that I can certainly expect to express in the strongest possible terms my views on Russia's invasion...to talk about its impact on Ukraine and the entire global economy and to condemn it."

"I expect that many of my colleagues will do the same."

Russia's finance minister is not scheduled to attend but will likely address the summit through a video link.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters

Ukrainian forces have struck at least three Russian military sites in southern Ukraine as they intensified their counteroffensive in the region, while Russia maintained its shelling of towns and cities in the east, south, and center of the country.

Among the bloodiest of the attacks on July 14, Ukrainians authorities reported that three missiles hit the historic town of Vinnytsya, 270 kilometers west of Kyiv, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the attack "an open act of terrorism."

Meanwhile, on the diplomatic front, a breakthrough appeared near on July 14 in Istanbul, where Russian and Ukrainian military delegations were negotiating a deal aimed at resuming Black Sea grain exports blocked by Russia and ease the risk of starvation faced by millions.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, worldwide reaction, and the plight of civilians and refugees. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Ukraine's Operational Command South said on July 14 that its forces had hit two military checkpoints and a landing pad in the second strike this week on Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region, a Russian-held area in the south. It said 13 Russian "occupiers" had been killed.

The strike came two days after Ukraine said its forces had hit a Russian munitions depot in Nova Kakhovka, killing 52 soldiers. The town's Russian-installed authorities said at least seven civilians were killed in that assault.

Ukraine's attacks in the south followed an announcement by Kyiv that it was amassing hundreds of thousands of troops in the region to prepare for a major offensive to recapture territory there while Russian forces set their focus on capturing the Donbas region, which consists of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Battlefield claims on either side of the conflict could not be independently verified.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Ukraine's Donetsk regional military administration, said three civilians were killed and five injured in shelling in the region, including two people in the town of Chasiv Yar.

Chasiv Yar, with a population of about 12,000 people, was the site of a Russian rocket attack on an apartment building on July 9 that killed 48 people, an assault Ukrainian officials have called a "war crime."

Kyrylenko said Russian shelling also hit a granite factory in Slovyansk. There were no injuries, but the destruction was extensive, he said on Telegram, where he posted videos of the bombed factory.

The British Defense Ministry in its daily intelligence briefing on July 13 said Russian troops were nearing the towns of Siverskiy and Dolyna, with the urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk "the principal objectives for this phase of operation."

The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said on July 14 that Russian forces were repelled following an attempt to take the town of Kurulka near Kharkiv, which is in northeast Ukraine but outside the Donbas.

It said, though, that Russian troops had "partial success" in an offensive being carried out toward the village of Kamyanka in southern Ukraine.

In Mykolayiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram that rescuers and emergency teams were working on the ground following a shelling attack on the southern city of some 476,000 people, 60 kilometers northwest of the Russian-occupied port of Kherson.

In the attack on Vinnytsya, authorities said the Russian missiles hit an office block, residential buildings, and a medical center.

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"Every day, Russia kills civilians, kills Ukrainian children, carries out missile attacks on the civilian facilities where there is no military target. What is this, if not an open act of terrorism?" Zelenskiy said in an online posting.

Vinnytsya, a city of 370,000 people, dates back to the Middle Ages, founded in 1363, according to the city's website.

RT editor in chief Margarita Simonyan in a tweet quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying the site was a housing unit for Ukrainian military officers.

The news came as EU foreign and justice ministers were meeting at The Hague for a conference on alleged Russian war crimes.

Zelenskiy, addressing the gathering through a video linkup, called for a "special tribunal" to investigate Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Existing judicial institutions cannot bring all the guilty parties to justice. Therefore, a special tribunal is needed to address the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine," Zelenskiy said.

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is scheduled to attend the gathering in person.

Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians, despite video evidence showing otherwise and the widespread destruction of Ukrainian cities.

While wider peace talks have broken off indefinitely between Russia and Ukraine, military contingents from the two countries met in Istanbul for talks aimed at restoring wheat and grain exports from Ukrainian ports now occupied by Russia.

Participants said that enough progress had been made in the talks brokered by Turkey and the UN to allow for further sessions next week.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, AP, AFP, and Reuters

The European Commission will delay its next assessment of Georgia's progress toward meeting the priorities required before it can be considered for EU membership, giving the country more time to make its case before the bloc.

Michael Rupp, a representative of the European Commission enlargement directorate, on July 13 said the delay was intended to give Tbilisi "proper time to work carefully" on meeting the priorities to win European Union candidate status.

The commission will now assess Georgia's implementation of required steps sometime in 2023 and not in December of this year as originally intended.

Rupp said the commission had been "very interested" to see Georgia work "hard, deep, and thoroughly" on the priorities.

He said EU officials did not want to "rush" Georgia, given the political disputes in the South Caucasus country over ways to implement Brussels' 12-point program.

The delay "will give Georgia's political system the right time to work carefully on these priorities," he said.

Kakha Gogolashvili, director of the Center for European Studies at the Tbilisi-based Rondeli Foundation, told RFE/RL that the delay was in one way a sad fact for Georgia, since "all recommendations could easily be implemented in a timely manner."

"On the other hand, it may be a good thing -- because, in fact, there is no chance that we will comply with the 12 points by the end of this year."

Georgia has been gripped by months of unrest, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of Tbilisi to protest what the opposition sees as the government's failure to make progress on the required reforms.

Protesters have demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili and the formation of a new government of "national accord."

While deferring on Georgia, the EU at the same time formally agreed to take the "historic" step of making Ukraine and Moldova candidates for EU membership in the midst of the war in Ukraine.

Gharibashvili has said his government is "mobilized" to meet the requirements set by Brussels "so that we get candidate status as soon as possible."

The European Commission said the conditions that Tbilisi must fulfill include ending political polarization, progress on media freedom, judiciary and electoral reforms, and "de-oligarchization."

Opinion polls show that at least 80 percent of the Georgian population favor plans to join the EU, as well as NATO, amid perceived threats from Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid jointly pledged to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, although the two allies remained divided on specific ways to deal with Tehran.

"We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon," Biden told a news conference on July 14 following the joint signing of the Jerusalem Declaration during the U.S. president’s first Middle East trip since taking office in January 2021.

The statement also reaffirmed Washington’s support for Israel's regional military edge and its ability "to defend itself by itself."

"The United States stresses that integral to this pledge is the commitment never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome," the statement added.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran will have a "harsh and regrettable response" to any "mistake" committed by Washington or its allies.

"The great nation of Iran will not accept any insecurity or crisis in the region, and Washington and its allies should know that any mistake will be met by a harsh and regrettable response from Iran," Raisi said during a speech.

Lapid said after the signing that "the only way to stop a nuclear Iran is if Iran knows the free world will use force."

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Israel and the United States still differ on specific policy toward Iran.

Biden has said he wants to return the United States to the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with world powers while he was vice president under President Barack Obama.

But then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact in 2018, saying Iran was not living up to the terms of the deal and was financing terror in the Middle East, a claim Tehran has denied.

On-and-off negotiations are being conducted between Iran and Western powers looking to revive the pact. Israel, a bitter rival to Iran, has opposed the nuclear deal, fearing the terms could lead to Tehran eventually developing nuclear weapons.

Biden, speaking to Israeli TV, said the deal represents the best opportunity to block Iran's attempts to develop a nuclear bomb.

"The only thing worse than the Iran which exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons, and if we can return to the deal we can hold them tight," he said.

When asked if the United States could use force if needed, he responded, "If that was the last resort, yes."

Opponents of the pact have said the sanctions relief tied to the deal would provide Tehran additional money to support its proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

Biden will also likely face continued opposition from Saudi Arabia when he travels to the Gulf nation later in the week. Sunni Muslim-led Saudi Arabia is also a bitter rival to Shi’ite-majority Iran, with both competing for influence in the region.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Iran has condemned a decision by a Swedish court to sentence former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri to life in prison for crimes committed during a 1988 purge of dissidents in Iran.

"Iran is absolutely certain that Nouri's sentence was politically motivated and it has no legal validity," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement.

Nouri, 61, was convicted of a "serious crime against international law" and "murder," the Stockholm district court said in a statement on July 14.

"The sentence is life imprisonment," it said. Nouri can appeal the verdict and sentence.

The court said Nouri participated “in the executions of many political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988" and had “the role of assistant to the deputy prosecutor” at the Gohardasht prison in Karaj, Iran, "jointly and in collusion with others been involved in the executions."

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Amnesty International called the verdict unprecedented and said it sends a message to Iranian authorities.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement that survivors and relatives of thousands of political dissidents who were killed have waited decades for justice.

"With this first-ever ruling against an Iranian official, albeit in a European court, they have finally witnessed an Iranian official held to account for these crimes," she said.

Eltahawy also said the ruling should serve as a wakeup call to the international community to tackle the "crisis of impunity that prevails in Iran" and urged the UN Human Rights Council to set up a mechanism to investigate serious crimes committed in the country, including the thousands of unresolved disappearances.

Nouri was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019 and was charged with war crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at the Gohardasht prison in Karaj in 1988.

The killings targeted members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), a political-militant organization that advocated the overthrow of Iran's clerical regime.

The group fought alongside the Iraqi Army, which was at war with Iran at the time, the Swedish prosecutors said, adding that Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued an order for the execution of all prisoners in Iranian prisons who sympathized with and remained loyal to the MKO.

Amnesty International estimated that at least 5,000 people were executed on Khomeini's orders, saying in a 2018 report that "the real number could be higher." Iran has never acknowledged the killings.

Sweden's principle of universal jurisdiction allows its courts to try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.

Nouri is the only person so far to be tried in the mass executions. He has denied the charges.

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The trial, which began in August 2021, is particularly sensitive in Iran, where current government figures have been accused of having a role in the 1988 deaths, most notably President Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi, a former chief of Iran's judiciary, has denied involvement in the killings, and Tehran has called Nouri's trial “illegal.”

"Sweden should provide the grounds for the release of Nouri as soon as possible," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told a news conference on July 13.

Some in the West have expressed concerns about possible reprisals against Western prisoners held by Tehran. Two Swedish-Iranian citizens are on death row in Iran.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

France will mark Bastille Day with a traditional military parade in Paris that will this year serve as a salute to Ukraine's resistance to Russia's brutal invasion.

The celebration -- also known as French National Day -- marks the anniversary of the 1789 storming by rebels of the Bastille, which was then a prison, an assault that is credited with launching the French Revolution.

The parade on the Champs-Elysees will open on July 14 with the presentation of the flags of nine guest countries, most of them neighbors of Ukraine or Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

"The parade is marked by, and takes account of, the strategic context," an official in President Emmanuel Macron's office said.

"The idea is to highlight the strategic solidarity with our allies."

French troops deployed close to Ukraine will be honored at the event, which Macron and many foreign leaders will attend.

France rushed some 500 troops to Romania days after Russia's February 24 attack on Ukraine and has indicated it is ready to increase deployments to NATO's eastern flank if needed.

Based on reporting by AFP and dpa

Ukraine has severed relations with North Korea after Pyongyang recognized two eastern territories of Ukraine as independent.

"We consider this decision as an attempt by Pyongyang to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

"The North Korean regime's recognition of the 'subjectivity' of the Russian occupational regimes in Donetsk and Luhansk regions is null and void, will have no legal consequences, and will not change the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine," the statement said.

Russian media reported earlier on July 13 that North Korea had recognized the "independence" of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions occupied by Moscow-backed separatists.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement also condemned North Korea’s decision and said in response to the "unfriendly act" Ukraine was severing diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

Political and economic contacts had already been suspended due to international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said North Korea's decision said more about Moscow's "toxicity" than Pyongyang's.

"Russia has no more allies in the world, except for countries that depend on it financially and politically, and the level of isolation of the Russian Federation will soon reach the level of isolation of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). Ukraine will continue to respond as harshly as possible to encroachments on its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Kuleba said.

The North Korean Embassy in Moscow confirmed Pyongyang's decision, making North Korea only the third country after Russia and Syria to recognize the two entities in Ukraine's Donbas region.

Denis Pushilin, head of a separatist group in the Donetsk region, said on Telegram that he hoped for "fruitful cooperation" and increased trade with North Korea, an isolated country more than 6,500 kilometers away.

With reporting by Reuters

The European Union executive has said that sanctioned Russian goods can transit through EU territory by rail but stressed the importance of monitoring such shipments.

The European Commission guidance comes after Lithuania last month imposed restrictions on Russian goods traveling across its territory to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, mainly by rail, arguing it was applying sanctions imposed by the EU after Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Moscow demanded that Lithuania immediately lift the restrictions, threatening retaliation if it didn’t, and said it had taken its grievances to European authorities.

The legal guidance released by the EU executive said that while transit by road was not allowed, "no such prohibition exists for rail transport" from Russia to Kaliningrad, with the exception of weapons.

Kaliningrad is wedged between Lithuania and Poland and is connected to the rest of Russia by a rail line through Lithuania.

Vilnius shut the route for transport of steel and other ferrous metals, which it said it was required to do under EU sanctions that took effect on June 18. The transit of nonsanctioned goods through Lithuania to the enclave was not affected.

EU spokesman Eric Mamer said the commission "did not negotiate anything with Russia."

The European Commission said Lithuania, like all EU countries, had an obligation to prevent the circumvention of EU sanctions, but this should be done through "targeted, proportionate, and effective controls and other appropriate measures."

Such controls would detect any "unusual flows or trade patterns" that would indicate sanctions busting, it said.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said Vilnius would adhere to the guidance.

But it added in a statement that the previous trade rules blocking many sanctioned cargoes from transport between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad were "more acceptable."

"Kaliningrad transit rules may create an unjustified impression that the transatlantic community is softening its position and sanctions policy towards Russia", the statement said.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has sent Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin to pretrial detention for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian military.

The Basmanny district court ruled on July 13, when Yashin was expected to be released after serving a 15-day jail term for allegedly disobeying a police order, that the Moscow municipal lawmaker must stay in pretrial detention until at least September 12.

Yashin's lawyers asked the court to place their client under house arrest. The hearing was held behind closed doors at investigators' request.

"The request to put me in pretrial detention says: 'Yashin damaged Russia's interests by his statements....' Absurd. With my statements I defended Russia. Its interests are being damaged by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who drew my Russia down into the war [with Ukraine], created the dictatorship of thieves, and frightens everyone who disagrees with him," Yashin wrote on Facebook after the ruling was pronounced.

Yashin's lawyers said the day before that their client was charged with distributing false information about the Russian armed forces in the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Yashin, 39, is an outspoken Kremlin critic and one of the few prominent opposition politicians still in Russia after a wave of repression against supporters of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and people who have spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine.

He has been fined four times in recent weeks on charges of discrediting the Russian military over his open opposition to the war in Ukraine.

He said last month after his arrest on the disobedience charge that a criminal case might be launched against him after he served his jail term.

Yashin also said that the authorities were trying to force him to leave Russia, which he refuses to do.

BISHKEK -- Preliminary hearings in the high-profile case of the director of the Next television channel in Kyrgyzstan, who is currently under arrest over the airing of a controversial report related to Russia's war in Ukraine, will be held on July 14.

The Next television channel director, Taalaibek Duishembiev, was arrested after a person interviewed in the report alleged the existence of an agreement between Bishkek and Moscow to send troops to assist Russian armed forces in the war.

Duishembiev's lawyer, Timur Sultanov, said on July 13, that investigators had passed the case to a court in Bishkek after completion of the investigation.

Duishembiev was arrested and charged with inciting ethnic hatred in early March.

The charge stemmed from comments by the exiled former chief of the Committee for National Security of neighboring Kazakhstan, Alnur Musaev, who said in the interview that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had agreed to support Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by sending troops to help Russia.

Next officials have insisted the report was balanced, as it quoted Musaev directly while giving other people's views on the issue.

In late June, investigators additionally charged Duishembiev with inciting ethnic hatred, saying that his television channel distributed on Instagram an interview conducted by another Kyrgyz TV channel with Russian rights defender Valentina Chupik, in which he said that Russian authorities had pressured Kyrgyz men who recently obtained Russian citizenship into being recruited to fight in Ukraine.

There has been no evidence of Kyrgyz troops fighting in Ukraine since the invasion was launched on February 24.

The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry has rejected the report and called on local media outlets to base their reporting on the war in Ukraine solely on official government statements.

Domestic and international human rights organizations have demanded Duishembiev's release, saying that his arrest violates freedom of expression.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Russia of forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from areas it controls in the east and south of the country to Russia.

Blinken said an estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, have been interrogated, detained, and deported from their homes to Russia, including to isolated areas in the Far East, through "filtration" operations.

In a statement on July 13, he called on Russia to stop these operations, which he said violate the Geneva Conventions.

"The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime," Blinken said.

The Russian Embassy in Washington called the comments an attempt to stoke "Russophobia" and "poor-quality Western disinformation."

"Washington's attempt to vilify the armed forces of the Russian Federation is apparently connected with dissatisfaction with the success of a special military operation," the embassy said in an online post. Moscow refers to its invasion of Ukraine as a "special military operation."

Blinken said that the "filtration" operations were separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports "in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine."

The people who are "filtered out" include Ukrainians deemed threatening because of their potential affiliation with the Ukrainian military, media, government, and civil society groups, Blinken said.

He also cited eyewitness reports from survivors who said that Russian authorities had transported tens of thousands of people to detention facilities in Donetsk controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, where many are reportedly tortured.

There are reports that some individuals targeted for "filtration" have been summarily executed, he said.

The "filtration" program appears to have been planned early and matches similar operations that Russia undertook in other wars, including in Chechnya, he said, adding that the Russians must be held accountable.

"This is why we are supporting Ukrainian and international authorities' efforts to collect, document, and preserve evidence of atrocities," he said.

The statement came a day before the Ukraine Accountability Conference in The Hague on alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

With reporting by AFP

A group of 11 human rights organizations have appealed to Belgium to cancel a recent agreement with Iran on the mutual exchange of prisoners.

In a joint statement released on July 12, the groups appealed to the Belgian parliament to cancel the accord, saying it could result in the release of a convicted terrorist and "legitimize Iran's hostage-taking."

The groups warned that the agreement violated the commitment of Belgium and the European Union to hold perpetrators of terrorist acts accountable.

According to the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, the accord was expected to pave the way for the release of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Brussels university professor with dual Iranian-Swedish citizenship who has been held in Iran since 2016 and has been convicted of espionage, and Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian aid worker who has been held in isolation in Iran for five months after being accused of spying.

Iran has called for the release of Assadollah Assadi, sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium in 2021 in connection with a plot to bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, outside Paris in June 2018.

The NCRI is the political wing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK), an exiled opposition group that seeks to overthrow the Islamic republic.

The Foreign Relations Committee of Belgium's lower house of parliament debated the treaty over two days before finally approving it on July 6.

The measure still needs to be put before the full 150-member lower house, but the chamber normally follows the votes of its committees.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, the Siamak Pourzand Foundation, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network are among the signatories of the statement.

They have warned that Belgium should not facilitate the "shameless use of human lives as a tool" by the authorities of the Islamic republic.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

Due to delays in the construction of power plants, Iran will experience a deficit of 15,000 megawatts of electricity this summer, a member of the Electricity-Producers Syndicate told Iranian media.

Payam Bagheri told the semiofficial ILNA news agency on July 12 that to avoid the electricity deficit, 6,000 megawatts should have been added to the country's electricity production, "something that has not happened in recent years."

At the same time, Abbas Jabal Barezi, the deputy chairman of the Industries Committee of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, said that because of the electricity deficit, large enterprises had been asked not to produce for five to six weeks this summer season.

"Right now, some factories are operating at 50 percent capacity, and many at 20-30 percent capacity," he added.

According to statistics from the Energy Ministry, during the last three years, less than half of the government's planned power-plant construction has been implemented. Last year, only one-third of electricity-production growth targets were achieved.

The government had set a target of launching new power plants with more than 5,000 megawatts of capacity this year, while the Energy Ministry figures show that only 648 megawatts of new production was launched in April and May.

Iran's power sector is a money-losing industry due to low electricity prices and the poor efficiency of power plants. Therefore, generation of electricity is a loss for the government, which controls the whole network.

According to the International Energy Agency, Iran is the largest single provider of fossil-fuel subsidy payments in the world. Almost one-fourth of this subsidy is allocated to the electricity sector.

This is far more than what other countries in the Middle East allocate.

With writing and reporting by Ardeshir Tayebi

An ethnic Kazakh from China's northwestern province of Xinjiang, who was released from immigration custody in Ukraine and moved to Poland along with thousands of refugees fleeing Russia's ongoing invasion in March, is currently being held in Germany for allegedly entering the country illegally.

A police official in the Bavarian city of Kempten told RFE/RL on July 13 that Chinese citizen Ersin Erkinuly was currently in detention, but refused to give any other details, saying that, according to German law, a person in custody must agree in writing before information about his case can be made public.

Erkinuly told RFE/RL earlier this month by phone that he was detained when entering the country from neighboring France, adding that he feared he could be deported to China.

However, the German official told RFE/RL his country never deports individuals to countries where they may face death or torture, adding that Erkinuly could be deported to the EU country from which he entered Germany.

Erkinuly was arrested by Ukrainian border guards in October 2020 when he tried to cross into Poland without proper documentation.

SEE ALSO:

Ethnic Kazakh From Xinjiang Says Released From Ukrainian Custody, Now In EU

He was released from custody in the western city of Lviv in December 2020 after an appeals court canceled a lower-court decision to deport him back to China.

In August 2021, Slovak border guards detained Erkinuly after he attempted to illegally cross the border and sent him back to Ukraine, where he was rearrested and held in an immigration center in Lviv.

Erkinuly has claimed he lost his Chinese passport and that he would face imprisonment and torture if he was sent back to China. The Ukrainian authorities eventually granted him refugee status.

In recent years, many Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang's other mostly Muslim, indigenous ethnic groups have fled the country, fearing detention.

The U.S. State Department has said that as many as 2 million members of these ethnic groups have been taken to Chinese detention centers.

China denies that the facilities are internment camps, calling them re-education centers.

Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after the Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans.

Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko, who was detained in St. Petersburg in April on accusations of discrediting the Russian armed forces with "fake" social-media posts about the war in Ukraine, has said she was tortured in a psychiatric clinic in Siberia.

Ponomarenko, who is currently in pretrial detention in the Siberian city of Barnaul, wrote in an open letter published on July 13 that while in the psychiatric clinic, in which she was ordered to undergo a "psychiatric evaluation," she was forcibly injected with unknown substances when she demanded her personal belongings or hygiene items.

"I have no recollection of three whole days," she wrote.

"Three Federal Penitentiary Service officers held my legs and arms, pushing me down on the bed, while a nurse injected me against my will," Ponomarenko said.

The psychiatric evaluations of criminal suspects do not include any injections.

SEE ALSO:

Russian Journalist Accused Of Discrediting Army Sent To Psychiatric Hospital

Ponomarenko, who works for the RusNews website in the Altai region and who is the mother of two young children, was transferred from St. Petersburg to Barnaul late last month.

She faces up to 10 years in prison for a Telegram post about the Russian bombing of a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which hundreds of civilians were killed.

A Russian law passed in March criminalizes the dissemination of "fake" reports that purportedly "discredit the armed forces."

With reporting by Taiga.info and RusNews

Five Central European countries, all members of the European Union, have urged the EU to grant candidate status to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"It is about a signal from our governments that the Western Balkans are important for the EU," Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on July 13 in Budapest.

The foreign ministers of the so-called C5 -- Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- demanded that the next EU summit in October put the issue on the agenda.

In June, Ukraine and Moldova were granted EU candidate status.

Bosnia, which is still suffering from the effects of a 1992-95 war, was passed over at that summit.

Of the Western Balkan states, only Bosnia and Kosovo do not yet have candidate status.

In late June, leaders of six Balkan countries complained about the lack of progress on their bids to join the EU ahead of the bloc's decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova candidate status.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama hailed the granting of candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova but said they should have no illusions.

He pointed out that Albania and other Balkan countries have had candidate status for years -- North Macedonia since 2005 and Albania since 2014.

Rama and the leaders of the other five Balkan countries seeking EU membership -- Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia -- met with EU leaders for four hours ahead of the announcement granting candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.

Based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Balkan Service and dpa

A cousin of the jailed former head of Kazakhstan's Committee of National Security (KNB) has been detained while allegedly trying to cross the border into Russia using forged documents.

The Anti-Corruption Agency said on July 13 that Nurlan Masimov, 48, who served as police chief of the northern Pavlodar region before the January protests that turned violent and left more than 230 people dead, was detained on suspicion of bribe-taking.

The agency said earlier in April that it had added Masimov to its wanted list.

Nurlan Masimov's cousin, Karim Masimov, a close ally of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev, was arrested after the January unrest along with three of his KNB deputies on charges of high treason.

The protests in the southwestern town of Zhanaozen in early January over a sudden fuel-price hike spread across Kazakhstan and led to violent clashes in Almaty and elsewhere.

The protesters' economic discontent was quickly followed by broader demands against corruption, political stagnation, and widespread injustice.

Much of their anger appeared directed at Nazarbaev, who ruled Kazakhstan from 1989 until March 2019, when he handed power to Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev. However, Nazarbaev was widely believed to remain in control behind the scenes.

Since the protests, Toqaev has swept out many figures seen as loyal to Nazarbaev, as well as those who were seen as failing to contain the violence.

Kazakh officials said 232 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, were killed during the unrest across the country.

Human rights groups insist that the number may be much higher as scores of people remain missing, presenting proof that many peaceful demonstrators and people who had nothing to do with the protests were killed by police and military personnel following Toqaev's "shoot-to-kill-without-warning" order.

With reporting by KazTAG and Tengrinews