Watchdog

The NGO Front Line has expressed its concern for 12 activists of the One Million Signatures Campaign and Mothers For Peace who have been arrested and detained.

The 12 were arrested on March 26 in Tehran as they gathered to visit the families of political prisoners on the occasion of the Iranian new year.

Ten were later released on bail but instructed to report back for questioning. The other two, Khadijeh Moghadam and Mahbubeh Karami, remain in detention in Evin prison.

The One Million Signatures Campaign seeks to rally public support against legal discrimination against women in Iran. It has come under increasing pressure from the authorities in recent months.

Mothers For Peace is a group of Iranian women who campaign for peace and stability in the region.

Investigators in Moscow have closed their investigation into the death of Yury Shchekochikhin, an independent journalist who died under mysterious circumstances in 2003, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

Shchekochikhin, 54, worked for the Moscow-based independent newspaper "Novaya gazeta." The official cause of his death was declared to be an allergic reaction, but his colleagues told RFE/RL that they doubt the official version.

Shchekochikhin was well known for his investigative articles and analyses. His most popular works were about the liberation of captured Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

"Novaya gazeta" initiated its own investigations into his death in 2008.

Two other journalists for "Novaya gazeta" have been shot to death in the last two and a half years: Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and Anastasia Baburova in January of this year. Both, like Shchekochikhin, wrote about Chechnya.

Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky told RFE/RL that his party will fight to reverse the decision to close the case.