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Iranian security forces stand on a street in Tehran on October 8.
Iranian security forces stand on a street in Tehran on October 8.

The United Kingdom has sanctioned senior Iranian security officials, as well as the country's notorious morality police, as a fourth week of protests over the death of a woman in custody saw further clashes with police.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody last month has sparked protests across Iran and internationally, with demonstrators calling for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

From Tehran and elsewhere, online videos have emerged despite authorities disrupting the Internet.

Video posted on social media on October 10 showed massive protests in the Western Iranian city of Sanandaj, with reports of clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Intense gunfire and explosions can be heard throughout the city.

In one video, which has not been independently verified, several armed officers can be seen beating a protester, sparking an outcry on social media. Another showed officers attacking a pregnant woman in the street and shooting and killing a driver in Sanandaj who honked his car horn as a sign of protest.

The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says at least 185 protesters have been killed by the security forces, including at least 19 children, as the protests entered their fourth week.

In response to the actions of security forces, the U.K. Foreign Office said in a statement on October 10 that it had sanctioned the morality police in its entirety, as well as both its chief, Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, and the head of the Tehran division, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei.

"The U.K. stands with the people of Iran who are bravely calling for accountability from their government and for their fundamental human rights to be respected," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

"These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities: We will hold you to account for your repression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you have inflicted on your own people."

Authorities have not commented on the situation in Sanandaj, but in a speech on October 9 the chief commander of the army said that troops, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and police forces have supported each other's efforts to quell the unrest and threatened that a "day of reckoning will come" for the protesters.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda
Russian oppositionist Vladimir Kara-Murza
Russian oppositionist Vladimir Kara-Murza

Jailed Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza has won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded annually by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to honor "outstanding" civil society action in the defense of human rights.

The prize was presented by PACE President Tiny Kox to Kara-Murza's wife, Yevgenia Kara-Muza at a special ceremony on October 10, the opening day of PACE's autumn plenary session in Strasbourg.

The prize is named after the late Czech dissident and playwright who became president of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic after the fall of communism. The award comes after the Russian rights group Memorial was named last week as a co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place. Today, Mr. Kara-Murza is showing this courage, from his prison cell,” Kox said.

The 41-year-old politician was detained in April and sentenced to 15 days in jail on a charge of disobeying police. He was later charged with spreading false information about the Russian Army while speaking to lawmakers in the U.S. state of Arizona.

Kara-Murza has rejected the charge, calling it politically motivated.

Last week, a high treason charge was added to the charges he faces over his alleged cooperation with organizations in a NATO member for many years. If convicted on the charge, the staunch opponent of the Kremlin faces up to 20 years in prison.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has blasted the Russian accusations as "baseless," saying it is "painfully obvious" that the Kremlin sees Kara-Murza as "a direct and imminent threat."

"With the start of Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, he launched a war on truth in our country," Kara-Murza said in a statement read by his wife.

"In Vladimir Putin's Russia, speaking the truth is considered a crime against the state."

The son of a prominent journalist, also named Vladimir, who died in 2019, the younger Kara-Murza was a television correspondent in Washington for several years and later worked on political projects launched by former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a prominent Putin foe who now lives in Europe after spending more than a decade in prison.

A close associate of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Kara-Murza is best known for falling deathly ill on two separate occasions in Moscow -- in 2015 and 2017-- with symptoms consistent with poisoning.

Tissue samples smuggled out of Russia by his relatives were turned over to the FBI, which investigated his case as one of "intentional poisoning."

U.S. government laboratories also conducted extensive tests on the samples, but documents released by the Justice Department suggest they were unable to reach a conclusive finding.

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"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.

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