New prison sentences handed down to a dozen people of the Baha'i faith in Iran are a reminder of the repression faced by the country's largest non-Muslim.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the 18-year sentence (10 years in prison plus eight years suspended) that an Iranian journalist received on 10 January, in what is the harshest sentence passed on any journalist since protests about Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody began four months ago. He and all of the other journalists imprisoned in Iran must be freed at once, RSF says.
Iranian security forces used excessive and unlawful lethal force against protesters in the western city of Sanandaj, the capital of Iran's Kurdistan Province, in October and November, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on December 21.
Hard-line Iranian lawmakers have proposed a plan to impose tougher penalties against those who publish news that is deemed to have "negative social consequences."
Iran's national currency, the rial, fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar as unrest triggered by the death in custody of a young woman over an alleged head scarf violation continues to rock the country.