Watchdog

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a video address has urged Switzerland to crack down on Russian oligarchs living in the country who he said were helping the Kremlin wage war on Ukraine.

In a speech on March 19 to thousands of people attending an anti-war protest in Bern, the Ukrainian leader thanked Switzerland for its support since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of his country.

But he also urged the Swiss financial sector to take action against the Russian millionaires who are using financial institutions in Switzerland to help fund Russia's war.

"Your banks are where the money of the people who unleashed this war lies. That is painful. That is also a fight against evil, that their accounts are frozen. That would also be a fight, and you can do this," he told the crowd through a translator in the video linkup.

"Ukrainians feel what it is when cities are destroyed. They are being destroyed on the orders of people who live in European, in beautiful Swiss towns, who enjoy property in your cities. It would really be good to strip them of this privilege."

In a rare move for the normally neutral country, Switzerland has fully adopted European Union sanctions against Russian individuals and entities and has ordered a freeze on their assets in Swiss banks.

Still, some ultrawealthy Russians -- said to have close ties to President Vladimir Putin -- continue to do business in Switzerland and have so far not been subject to financial sanctions.

No official figures have been released on Russian assets in the country, but the country's financial industry association estimates that Switzerland's secretive banks hold up to $213 billion of overall Russian wealth.

In his address, Zelenskiy -- wearing a short-sleeved, camouflage T-shirt -- also criticized the Swiss-based Nestle food company, which has so far decided not to withdraw from Russia, unlike many other companies.

Swiss President Ignazio Cassis greeted Zelenskiy from a stage on the Swiss capital's main square.

"We are impressed by the courage with which your people are fighting for freedom and peace," Cassis said.

"We are impressed by the way you defend the fundamental values of the free world, which are also our fundamental values."

With reporting by Reuters and dpa

A hacktivist group that claims to work inside Iran to expose the "true face of the regime" has released new footage highlighting inhumane conditions in the country's most notorious prison.

The new video, provided exclusively to RFE/RL's Radio Farda this week by Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice), adds to the evidence of extreme overcrowding at Tehran's Evin prison.

The footage shows prisoners lying wall to wall on floors and stacked three-high on metal bunk beds. As the camera moves from open cell to open cell, each equipped with beds for about 30 inmates, it reveals rooms filled with up to 50 inmates.

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Leaked Video Exposes Extreme Conditions In Notorious Iranian Prison

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RFE/RL could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

It is unclear when the footage was recorded, but Iran has consistently come under criticism from rights watchdogs for overcrowding and unsanitary conditions at its prisons, a problem that has contributed to COVID infections and deaths.

Edalat-e Ali has released a string of hacked videos and confidential documents that have exposed the systematic mistreatment of inmates at Evin prison. The leaks have even led to rare official acknowledgment that prison abuses were taking place at the facility that primarily houses political detainees.

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Exclusive: Hacktivist Group Aims To 'Expose The True Face Of The Regime' In Iran

Previous videos, which were hacked from CCTV cameras and published by Radio Farda among other media outlets, have shown prison guards assaulting detainees and inhumane conditions at the facility. The documents leaked by the hacktivist group have detailed how Evin prison authorities took harsh steps to break hunger strikes by prominent prisoners, including the denial of visitation rights and the blockage of phone access.

Mohammad Mehdi Hajmohammadi, the head of Iran's Prisons Organization, in August issued an apology and accepted responsibility for the "unacceptable behavior" at the prison, while judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei ordered an investigation.

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Hacked Videos Force The Unthinkable In Iran: Official Admission Of Abuses At Evin Prison

It was later announced that members of the prison staff had been suspended and that some cases had been forwarded to a military court. A member of parliament, meanwhile, demanded that those responsible for the publication of the video leaks be punished.

The emergence of the clips also led to harsh criticism from international rights watchdogs.

"This disturbing footage offers a rare glimpse of the cruelty regularly meted out to prisoners in Iran," Heba Morayef, the Middle East and North Africa regional director at Amnesty International, said in August. "It is shocking to see what goes on inside the walls of Evin prison, but sadly the abuse depicted in these leaked video clips is just the tip of the iceberg of Iran's torture epidemic."

The previous month, Amnesty had said that leaked documents that revealed the Iranian government had ignored prison officials' pleas for additional resources to control the spread of the coronavirus were in "stark contrast" to the judiciary's claims that it had introduced initiatives to protect prisoners from the pandemic.

"Overcrowding, poor ventilation, lack of basic sanitation and medical equipment, and deliberate neglect of prisoners' health problems are making Iranian prisons a perfect breeding ground for COVID-19," Amnesty said.

Edalat-e Ali, in an interview with Radio Farda in November, said that it was made up of Iranians working and living in Iran who sought to expose human rights abuses in the country.

In February, the group announced in a call to Radio Farda that the Ghezel Hesar prison in the city of Karaj had been hacked.

The group provided Radio Farda with a list of hundreds of Iranians who were detained during student protests in 1998 and held in Ghezel Hesar prison.