#political-prisoners

#political-prisoners

Belarus has pardoned an opposition activist who was arrested in 2021 after the Belarusian government forced the landing of a commercial flight he had been on that was transiting its airspace, state media reported on Monday.The activist, Roman Protasevich, 28, was the editor of Nexta, a channel on the Telegram messaging app that was instrumental in organizing mass protests against President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko after his disputed election victory in 2020.

Ahead of Ai Weiwei's largest UK exhibition in eight years, at the Design Museum, an incredible new piece has been unveiled from the artist.Made entirely out of Lego, Water Lilies #1 is an immense recreation of Monet's famed Water Lilies (1914 - 26).It's also the largest Lego artwork that Ai Weiwei has ever made.

MEXICO CITY - Elena Poniatowska types slowly now.She works in a small, sunlit office, next to a painting of a woman pulling on an enormous tree with a thin rope.The tree bends away from her, on the verge of collapse."People say that's me, always trying to save something," she said.She is 90, arguably Mexico's most famous living writer, with an influence that cuts across the literary and the political.

Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny placed a replica of the tiny punishment cell he has repeatedly been held in outside Russia's embassy in Berlin on Tuesday, in an effort to raise awareness of his fate.About 100 people including Navalny's brother Oleg attended the demonstration on the German capital's famous Unter den Linden boulevard, some holding placards calling for the release of all political prisoners in Russia, others for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes in Ukraine.

A German court is expected to deliver its verdict Tuesday on a 97-year-old woman charged with being an accessory to murder for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II.Prosecutors have called for the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany to give a two-year suspended sentence to defendant Irmgard Furchner, who is accused of being part of the apparatus that helped the camp function.

One of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winners was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after a Belarusian court found him guilty of financing actions violating public order and smuggling.Ales Bialiatski, one of Belarus' top human rights advocates, is the founder and chairman of the Viasna Human Rights Center, a nonprofit that focuses on providing financial aid and legal assistance to political prisoners and their families.

Dr. Artel Great's first exposure to the Museum of the African Diaspora came from a film.The scholar and filmmaker, who now teaches at San Francisco State in the school of cinema, spotted the institution in Barry Jenkins' 2008 film Medicine for Melancholy - it's one of the many stops a Black couple makes in their slow, conversation-filled journey across San Francisco after a one-night stand.

The Iranian government hanged a 23-year-old prisoner on Thursday, the first execution of a person accused of involvement in protests that have engulfed the country for the past three months.The man, Mohsen Shekari, was accused of blocking a street in Tehran and stabbing a member of the Basij militia with a machete 13 times during a protest, according to the Mizan news agency, which is overseen by the country's judiciary.

Irmgard Furchner sits in the courtroom at the beginning of the trial day in Itzehoe, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021.Christian Charisius/AP BERLIN  A German court on Tuesday convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to murder for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp during World War II.

An opposition leader in exile from Belarus has said that her country's soldiers should lay down their arms if they are deployed to Ukraine under pressure from Russia.ussia used Belarus as a staging ground for troops and weapons when it invaded Ukraine eight months ago.Concerns persist that the authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, might agree to send his own troops south into Ukraine.