Iran has blocked the bank account of a jailed prominent lawyer in a tactic aimed at silencing human rights activists, a campaign group said on Wednesday.
The account of Nasrin Sotoudeh has been frozen since May and efforts by her family and lawyer to regain control of the funds have been unsuccessful, the US-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran said.
Ms Sotoudeh was sentenced in 2019 to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for colluding against the system and insulting Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The UN and European Union condemned the punishment and the US described it as "beyond barbaric”.
Ms Sotoudeh was detained after representing women arrested on charges of appearing in public without headscarves in protest against Iran’s mandatory dress code.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, said that the order to block the account had been made by the prosecutors in Tehran.
“They want to send a message to those who are willing to go to prison. What we have to say is we won’t step back.”
His wife had previously served half of a six-year sentence and resumed her legal work after she was released in 2014.
Mr Khandan said the authorities “aren’t satisfied with the punishment imposed on his wife, especially when, despite their expectations, she had not been compliant after coming out of prison the last time”.
“This behaviour is a message to civil-rights and political and human-rights activists that if they do something, prison is the least they will be facing.
“The authorities think that prison has lost its effectiveness and dissidents are resuming their activities as soon as they get out of prison.”
The campaign group said that the restriction on Ms Sotoudeh’s finances was a blatant attempt to impose additional punishments on regime critics.
“The authorities in Iran have seen that repeatedly imprisoning Nasrin Sotoudeh and other human rights defenders has not silenced demands for basic civil and political rights, so they are going after them extrajudicially to inflict additional pain on their families,” Hadi Ghaemi, the group’s executive director, said
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
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The specs: 2017 Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn
Price, base / as tested: Dhxxx
Engine: 5.7L V8
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 395hp @ 5,600rpm
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Abu Dhabi GP schedule
Friday: First practice - 1pm; Second practice - 5pm
Saturday: Final practice - 2pm; Qualifying - 5pm
Sunday: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (55 laps) - 5.10pm
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Scoreline
Australia 2-1 Thailand
Australia: Juric 69', Leckie 86'
Thailand: Pokklaw 82'
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Non-oil%20trade
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
F1 The Movie
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Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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Liverpool 4
Salah (19'), Mane (45 2', 53'), Sturridge (87')
West Ham United 0
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Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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