Authorities in the North Kazakhstan region said on April 18 that three members of a group called the People's Council in the regional capital, Petropavl, have been arrested on separatism charges and face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Authorities in the Iranian city of Kashmar have shut down a clinic after a confrontation between two women over wearing a head scarf, a topic that has been at the center of months of unrest since a young woman died while in police custody after being detained over how she was wearing hers.
Protesters in several Iranian cities, including the capital, Tehran, have set fire to government banners commemorating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution as rights group Amnesty International chided the country's leaders for "decades of mass killings and cover-ups."
A new novel by Salman Rushdie will be published on February 7, nearly six months after a man repeatedly stabbed the writer onstage during a lecture in New York state.
Doctors have been tortured in Iranian prison amid the country's 20-week protests. Their "crime"? Treating demonstrators wounded by Iran's security forces.