Watchdog

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was briefly detained and later released by authorities.

Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh's husband, wrote on his Facebook page that she was detained on December 10 by police, who stopped their vehicle in Tehran.

Only an hour later, Khandan posted an update saying Sotoudeh had been released.

Khandan, who was also detained but then released prior to Sotoudeh, demanded that authorities explain the reason for her detention, which he called "illegal."

Sotoudeh, who won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov rights prize in 2012, was released from jail last year halfway through a six-year sentence for "actions against national security" and spreading "propaganda against the regime".

In September, a Tehran court banned her from practicing law for three years.

With reporting by AFP

About 50 protesters have demonstrated outside Azerbaijan's embassy in Tbilisi, demanding that Azerbaijan's government release Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and contributor to RFE/RL.

The demonstrators on December 10 tried to hand a petition to an embassy official, who came out of the building, but the man refused to take it.

Meanwhile, about 20 protesters picketed Azerbaijan's Consulate in Georgia's southwestern city of Batumi on December 10 to demand the journalist's immediate release.

About a dozen of Ismayilova's supporters also rallied in front of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Moldova's capital, Chisinau, on December 10.

Azerbaijani authorities on December 5 ordered Ismayilova to be held in pretrial detention for two months.

She was summoned to appear in court over a case in which a man accused her of encouraging him to commit suicide.

OSCE, European Union, and U.S. officials have expressed concern about Ismayilova's detention, calling her incarceration politically motivated and calling for her release.