Watchdog

The Iranian branch of Amnesty International says that a man who was a minor at the time of his alleged crime was pardoned at the last minute and won't be executed.

The human rights watchdog had raised an alarm earlier on August 15 and called for the cancelation of the scheduled execution of Mehdi Bohlouli on August 16, calling it "a sickening act of cruelty."

Bohlouli was sentenced to death in 2001, when he was 17, after being convicted of murder for what the authorities said was the fatal stabbing of a man during a fight.

Amnesty said on Twitter that Bohlouli received a last-minute pardon after the family of the deceased agreed to receive "blood money" (diyah).

"Mehdi Bohlouli will not be executed," it said.

Since the beginning of this year, Iran has executed at least four individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.

Under Iranian law, murder, rape, sodomy, and armed robbery at any age are punishable by death.

Amnesty said that as of this month, it had identified at least 89 people on death row who were under 18 when their crime was committed.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the "harassment" of reporters in Ukraine after security services raided the offices of an independent news website and a member of parliament criticized the head of the national press union for his response to the raid.

Ukrainian authorities should "end their harassment" of Strana.ua and "stop fostering a hostile environment toward the press," said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova in a statement on August 14.

Strana.ua said security service agents searched its Kyiv premises and the homes of two of its journalists last week as part of an investigation into allegations that the website disclosed confidential government information.

The raid was criticized by the chairman of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhiy Tomilenko, who in turn was accused by deputy Dmytro Tymchuk of supporting anti-Ukrainian activities.

CPJ quoted Tomilenko as saying that he has since received threatening messages on social media.

"Politicians are creating a toxic atmosphere for the media by dividing Ukrainian journalists into patriotic and unpatriotic, when they should be encouraging a wide variety of viewpoints to inform the public,” Ognianova said.