The number of reported coronavirus cases in Iran surpassed 4 million on August 4 amid a vicious wave of infections driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

Iran registered 39,357 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total since the pandemic started to 4,019,084, the Health Ministry said.

It recorded 409 deaths over the same period, bringing the official death toll to 92,194.

The real number of infections and deaths in the country of 83 million people is believed to be significantly higher.

The worst-hit country in the Middle East has struggled to contain the pandemic despite authorities imposing repeated restrictions.

The vaccine campaign has also been slow to get off the ground. More than 11 million people have received a first vaccine dose, but only 2.8 million have received the necessary two jabs, according to the Health Ministry.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered that "necessary measures" be taken on August 2 to contain what authorities warn is a "fifth wave" of the country's outbreak after Health Minister Saeed Namaki requested a two-week shutdown.

Iranian Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli said on August 4 that the proposal to shut the country needed more consideration in the coming days and that a decision would soon be made.

Incoming President Ebrahim Raisi chaired a meeting of Iran's COVID-19 task force for the first time on August 4 just a day after his inauguration, his office said.

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Iran's Raisi Inaugurated Vowing To Fight 'Tyrannical' U.S. Sanctions

Reports from multiple cities suggest many hospitals have reached their full capacity while health workers are being pushed to their limits due to the high number of COVID-19 patients, with intensive care stations and emergency rooms overflowing.

Iranian health officials warn that less than 40 percent of the population follows health protocols such as wearing face masks and social distancing.

With reporting by AFP, IRNA and ISNA

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will not send observers to Russia’s upcoming elections for the first time in nearly three decades due to "major limitations" imposed by Russian authorities.

The OSCE said on August 4 that Russian authorities restricted the number of election observers the intergovernmental body could send, ostensibly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We very much regret that our observation of the forthcoming elections in Russia will not be possible," said Matteo Mecacci, the director of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR).

"The insistence of the Russian authorities on limiting the number of observers we could send without any clear pandemic-related restrictions has unfortunately made today’s step unavoidable," he added.

The OSCE is one of the world’s premier election-observing bodies, sending experts throughout its 57 participating member states to determine whether elections are free and fair. The OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly also sends short-term election observer missions.

On September 19, Russians will vote to choose members of the lower house of parliament, or State Duma, and 39 regional parliaments, as well as nine regional governors.

In the run-up to the elections, the Kremlin has cracked down on opposition political figures and independent media.

Several opposition figures have also been barred from competing in the vote, most of them affiliated with the political network of jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.

The OSCE had been invited to observe the Russian elections, but the number of allowed observers was later restricted to 60 due to what Russian authorities cited as the deteriorating pandemic situation in the country. The OSCE had assessed earlier this year that it needed 80 long-term and 420 short-term observers.

The OSCE said there were no pandemic-related entry restrictions or rules about operating and moving within the Russia that would justify not deploying a full election observation mission. It also noted that it had sent election observers to numerous other countries since the pandemic began.

"I am very disappointed that limitations imposed by the national authorities prevent the OSCE from providing the Russian voters with a transparent and authoritative assessment of their elections, as we have been doing consistently since 1993," OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly President Margareta Cederfelt said.

"The OSCE was limited to sending only a small fraction of the observers we had intended, and this simply does not enable us to carry out our work in an effective and thorough manner."

An Iranian Revolutionary Court has sentenced two dual nationals, German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi and British-Iranian Mehran Raouf, to more than 10 years in prison.

The defendants’ lawyer, Mostafa Nili, on August 4 announced the verdict on Twitter.

"Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced Ms. Nahid Taghavi and Mr. Mehran Raouf to 10 years in prison for participating in the management of an illegal group and to eight months in prison for propaganda activities against the regime," Nili wrote.

The sentences can be appealed.

Iran’s judiciary has not publicly confirmed the sentences, which were delivered behind closed doors.

Mariam Claren, Taghavi’s daughter, acknowledged the sentence against her mother, saying she was innocent and "imprisoned...like thousand[s of] other political prisoners."

Taghavi, 66, was arrested in Tehran in October while on a family visit and spent nearly five months in solitary confinement in the capital's notorious Evin prison, in a case rights groups say amounts to politically motivated hostage taking.

Taghavi, a trained architect who lived in the German city of Cologne for nearly four decades, was active in supporting women's rights and freedom of expression in Iran, according to the Germany rights group IGFM.

Germany's Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the case, but that it had only limited access to Taghavi.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights In Iran condemned the sentence for Taghavi and Raouf and said they added to growing concerns over a worsening human rights situation in Iran.

"To condemn two peaceful, elderly people to prison under sham charges at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is raging throughout the country reveals the cruelty of the Iranian judicial system," Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the rights group said in a statement.

"These sentences indicate that the Iranian security establishment isn’t content with unlawfully harassing, jailing, and muzzling people, it also wants to endanger their lives," he added.

The human rights group Amnesty International has said Taghavi is a political prisoner whose right to a fair trial had been denied.

Raouf, a 64-year-old labor rights activist who lived between Iran and Britain, was arrested in Tehran last October, according to Amnesty.

Amnesty said in February that Raouf was being held in "prolonged solitary confinement, in violation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment."

In recent years, Iranian authorities have jailed dozens of dual nationals, including journalists, academics, and human rights defenders.

Rights activists accuse Iran of trying to win concessions from other countries through such arrests. Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, denies holding people for political reasons.

"The noticeable accumulation of cases in which dual nationals are imprisoned without specific allegations of offenses indicates that the intent is to put pressure on the governments concerned," said Dieter Karg, an Iran expert at Amnesty International in Germany, in February.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

Lithuania has dismissed Belarusian allegations that an Iraqi man was beaten and died after being turned away at the Lithuanian border, describing it as "disinformation."

EU member Lithuania has faced a surge of mostly Iraqi migrants in recent months, prompting authorities this week to start pushing back illegal migrants and giving border guards authority to use force.

Lithuanian and European officials say the migrant flows are being orchestrated by Alyaksandr Lukashenka in retaliation for EU sanctions over his government's crackdown on the opposition following Belarus's presidential election nearly a year ago that was widely considered to be fraudulent.

Belarusian border guards claimed on August 4 that they found an Iraqi man in "serious" condition near the border with Lithuania and he "died in the arms of the border guards," according to Lukashenka's Telegram channel.

"The president was immediately informed of this shocking murder of an Iraqi returning from Lithuania," the channel said.

But Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said such reports were "clear misinformation."

"A hybrid attack is being carried out against Lithuania and the dissemination of such disinformation are examples of this," the minister told reporters, adding that similar attempts to spread false news would likely be attempted in the future.

"It's nonsense, Brothers Grimm's tales," she added.

More than 4,000 migrants have been detained by Lithuanian authorities so far this year, officials say, compared to a total of 81 in 2020. Most have attempted to cross the 679-kilometer Lithuanian-Belarusian border in the past month.

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More than two-thirds of them are Iraqi nationals who appear to have arrived in Minsk via increased direct flights from Baghdad.

Asked whether force had been used against any migrants trying to enter the country, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said she had no information about "any excesses."

"I am not aware of any information about any excesses that would have taken place in Lithuania or on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. The Belarusian government is responsible for what is happening in Belarus,” she told reporters after a government meeting.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said of the reports about the death of an Iraqi man that it amounted to further provocation by the Belarusian government.

“In fact, by organizing that whole illegal journey, involving their officials in this activity, I think that they cannot always control the situation themselves,” Anusauskas said.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service and Baltic News Service

AQTOBE, Kazakhstan -- A court in northwestern Kazakhstan has sentenced an activist to two years of parole-like terms over ties to the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement amid an ongoing crackdown on support for that group and the associated Koshe (Street) party.

The DVK is led from abroad by fugitive former banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government.

Judge Zhanas Quanyshev, in a court in the city of Aqtobe on August 4, also barred the convicted man, Asqar Qalasov, from using social networks for the duration of his sentence.

SEE ALSO:

Another Kazakh Activist Jailed Over Links To Ablyazov's Banned Political Group

Qalasov was detained in late March and placed under house arrest.

He rejects the charges against him, calling them politically motivated.

Also on August 4, another court in the Central Asian nation's southern city of Shymkent rejected an appeal filed by activist Nurzhan Mukhammedov against a similar sentence for his association with the DVK.

SEE ALSO:

Kazakh Activist Convicted Of Having Ties To Banned Political Groups

Mukhammedov was sentenced to two years of curbs on his freedom on the same charge in June.

He told RFE/RL that he will appeal the sentence.

A day earlier, a court in Kazakhstan's capital, Nur-Sultan, sentenced activist Erbol Eskhozhin to 2 1/2 years in prison over his alleged links to the DVK.

SEE ALSO:

Thirteen Kazakh Activists Go On Trial On Extremism Charges

A number of Kazakh activists have been convicted in recent years for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe Party and for participation in rallies organized by those groups.

Kazakhstan banned the DVK in March 2018 after deeming it an extremist organization.

Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings violates international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for unsanctioned rallies, despite constitutional guarantees on the right to free assembly.

Unusually high summer temperatures and strong winds have stoked deadly wildfires in parts of Russia, Turkey, and southeastern Europe, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and prompting the evacuation of thousands of people.

Pushed to the limit, Russian emergency services received additional help from the military to fight devastating forest fires in the east of the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on August 4 that additional technical equipment would be delivered to the isolated Siberian Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia.

Authorities say 173 fires are still raging in the region and that the situation remains difficult.

More than 2,500 members of the emergency forces are trying to prevent flames from spreading to several villages where thick smoke is blanketing the region.

Firefighting efforts in Yakutia covered a region of more than 8,000 square kilometers, authorities said.

Fires destroy huge swaths of wild forests in Russia every year, with environmental activists blaming a worsening situation on climate change.

A heat wave across southern Europe, fed by hot air from North Africa, has led to wildfires from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey to the Balkans.

In Bulgaria, two forestry workers were killed and another one was injured on August 4 as forest fires multiply across the country.

Two people also died in forest fires in Albania and Kosovo.

Extreme weather across southern Europe has fueled wildfires in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Albania, Kosovo, and across the Mediterranean region.

BELGRADE -- Serbia's Foreign Ministry on August 4 announced the sudden death of Belgrade's ambassador to Russia, 71-year-old former military analyst and journalist Miroslav Lazanski.

It said only that he had "passed away suddenly," but Serbian media cited officials as blaming his death on a heart attack at his home in Belgrade.

"His dedication, commitment, and devotion as the ambassador of our country will be remembered, as will his numerous activities aimed at further improving the cooperation and friendship between Serbia and Russia," the ministry said in a statement.

Lazanski was appointed as Belgrade's top envoy to Russia in July 2019.

He was a longtime journalist for the prominent Serbian daily Politika and a military analyst who had reported from conflict zones in Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Africa, and the Middle East.

Lazanski had also reported during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s from what are now Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Kosovo, and from Ukraine's Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.

He was also a frequent commentator for Russia's state-run media organization Sputnik.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who along with his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) allies has fostered close relations and a strategic partnership with Moscow, expressed his condolences.

"Serbia has lost a great man, its ambassador to the Russian Federation, one of the best experts on geopolitical opportunities, military strategy, and tactics, an exceptional journalist and publicist and, above all, a good man," Vucic wrote.

In a July 2020 report on "Russian interference" in North Macedonia, Bellingcat researchers linked Lazanski to a Moscow effort to "create a strip of militarily neutral countries" in the Balkans.

Bellingcat said that Russian and Serbian intelligence officers "formed a connection" with Lazanski and asserted that "Macedonian counterintelligence also implicated Lazanski as one of the main pro-Kremlin propagandists in the country."

In July, Lazanski was at the center of an unconfirmed Serbian report claiming he had accused neighboring NATO member Montenegro of preventing weapons donated to Belgrade by Russia from being delivered. The Montenegrin Defense Ministry reportedly denied that such permission had even been requested.

The Foreign Ministry said Lazanski's funeral would be held in Belgrade on August 6.

With reporting by AP

MURMANSK, Russia -- Election officials in Russia's northwestern city of Murmansk have officially accepted registration documents from the former leader of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's team after she waged a hunger strike over alleged obstruction.

Violetta Grudina said on August 4 that she had received an official letter from election officials confirming that her papers pursuant to her potential candidacy were received.

The registration's deadline is August 9 and Grudina told Current Time that she hopes her candidacy will be officially registered soon.

Last week, Grudina launched a hunger strike, saying that Murmansk authorities were creating artificial obstacles to bar her from running for a city council seat in next month's elections.

Russia holds national and local voting in elections seen as a key test of opposition pushback against tightening restrictions of public criticism and dissent, including the increasing use of loosely written laws on "foreign agents" against the media and NGOs and the ongoing jailings of Navalny and his allies.

Grudina, who was forcibly placed in a COVID-19 treatment facility in mid-July, has said all of the documents she compiled to register with the city's election commission while in the hospital disappeared.

SEE ALSO:

Russian Opposition Politician Lev Shlosberg Barred From Elections

She said she gave the files to the hospital’s chief physician to pass on to her legal representative, who was supposed to register her candidacy with election officials.

Grudina said that same chief physician, Arkady Amozov, recently registered as a candidate for the ruling United Russia party.

A court in Murmansk ruled on July 15 that Grudina must stay in a COVID-19 facility after testing positive for the coronavirus.

She called the court's decision politically motivated, insisting that she had recovered from COVID-19 long ago and did not require hospitalization.

On September 19, Russians will vote to choose members of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and 39 regional parliaments, as well as nine regional governors.

SEE ALSO:

In Time-Tested Spoiler Tactic, Russian Opposition Candidates Face Rivals With The Same Names

In the run-up to the elections, the Kremlin has cracked down -- sometimes brutally -- on opposition political figures and independent media.

In early June, a Moscow court labeled Navalny’s political network “extremist,” a move his team has called a sign of a “truly new level” of lawlessness in the country.

Days earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had endorsed a law banning leaders and founders of organizations declared "extremist" or "terrorist" by Russian courts from running for elective posts for a period of five years. Other members or employees of such organizations face three-year bans.

With the country mired in economic woes that have seen a decline in real incomes and rising inflation, the United Russia party has been polling at historic lows.

According to independent pollster Levada Center, just 27 percent of Russians support the ruling party, down from 31 percent a year ago.

KYIV -- Police in Ukraine have arrested a man after an hours-long standoff that began when the suspect entered the building that houses the national government in Kyiv with "an object that resembled an explosive device" and threatened to detonate it.

The chief of the Ukrainian National Police, Ihor Klymenko, identified the suspect as a veteran of the war against Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's east.

He said the suspect had been wounded twice in that fighting, including suffering a head injury.

Klymenko said an investigation was under way and the man's motives were still unclear.

Special police forces were called to the scene around 10 a.m. after "an unknown man entered the building of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, took out an object looking like an explosive device from his pocket, and threatened to detonate it,"police said.

Klymenko said the suspect threatened two security guards and a government administration employee.

Belarusian heptathlete Yana Maksimava says she and her Olympic-medalist husband have decided to stay in Germany with their child as the crackdown on pro-democracy groups and government critics continues in Belarus.

Maksimova's husband, Andrey Krauchanka, holds the Belarusian national record in the decathlon and won a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Maksimava said on Instagram on August 3 in connection with Belarus's worsening situation and international isolation that "now one can lose not only his or her freedom, but life."

Her announcement came as a fellow Belarusian, Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, scrambled to avoid being repatriated from Tokyo and reports emerged from Ukraine of a murder investigation after an exiled Belarusian regime critic was found dead in Kyiv.

"It is possible to breathe freely here and be one of those who is fighting for the liberty of their people, relatives, and loved ones; we will prevail for sure," Maksimava, who was born in Soviet-era Vilnius, wrote.

Tsimanouskaya is currently seeking asylum in Poland after reportedly refusing to be forced aboard a plane for Minsk by Belarusian national team officials at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Twenty-six-year-old Belarusian activist Vital Shyshou was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv on August 3 after going missing a day earlier. Ukrainian police and friends from the Kyiv-based organization he runs to help persecuted Belarusians said he showed signs of having been beaten.

That Olympic drama and Shyshou's death have cast further light on Alyaksandr Lukashenka's ruthless crackdown since protests erupted after he asserted victory in a presidential election in August 2020 that the opposition and international community say was fraudulent.

Meanwhile, the Nasha Niva newspaper reported on August 3 on its Telegram channel that a coach of the Vitsyaz handball club in the Belarusian capital has fled Minsk for Ukraine.

SEE ALSO:

Ukrainian Police Open Murder Case After Finding Missing Belarusian Activist 'Hanged' In Kyiv

In June, the coach, Kanstantsin Yakauleu, was arrested and held for 15 days for taking part in an unsanctioned anti-government rally.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other outside authorities are investigating Tsimanouskaya's claims that she was in danger after running afoul of Belarusian officials for criticizing them for gaffes at the games.

Tsimanouskaya was granted a humanitarian visa by Polish authorities after saying she feared jail if she returned to Belarus, and her Belarusian husband reportedly fled the country to eventually join her.

MINSK -- Belarusian authorities have shut down four more nongovernmental organizations in Minsk as Alyaksandr Lukashenka's crackdown against pro-democracy activists, independent media, and civil rights groups continues.

The closures bring the total number of NGOs shuttered without court decisions since mid-July to at least 65.

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office said on August 3 that the four newly liquidated groups include the Human Constanta human rights center, the Center to Promote Women's Rights, the Office for the Rights of Disabled People, and the Center for Legal Transformation.

The statement based the shutdowns on the groups' activities being "different" from what was listed in their charters.

It accused them of distributing information that "aimed to spread destructive ideas in society, called for economic and political pressure on the country, and supported other efforts damaging national security."

Two leaders of the Office for the Rights of Disabled People, Syarhey Drazdouski and Aleh Hrableuski, were arrested in early February on fraud charges.

They were later released and ordered not to leave Minsk as the probe against them continues.

Twenty more NGOs are expected to be shut down via hearings in court.

Belarusian authorities have forcibly expelled or jailed opposition leaders, arrested tens of thousands of people, targeted dozens of NGOs, and refused accreditation to or forced out journalists since a crackdown on massive street protests began after Lukashenka claimed to have won a sixth presidential term in August 2020.

His reelection claim has been dismissed by the beleaguered opposition and the West, which has slapped multiple rounds of sanctions to pressure Lukashenka's regime to ease the crackdown, talk with the opposition, and ensure a new, independent election.

SEE ALSO:

Belarusian Olympian Arrives In Poland After Refusing To Fly Back To Belarus

The ongoing drama of a Belarusian sprinter who is seeking European asylum after national team managers tried to force her home from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has highlighted the Belarusian regime's willingness to politicize virtually all aspects of life for that post-Soviet country's 9 million people.

MINSK -- The closed-door trial of two leading Belarusian opposition figures began in Minsk on August 4 over charges stemming from their calls for protests against the official results of last year’s widely discredited presidential election.

Maryya Kalesnikava and Maksim Znak are accused of conspiring to seize power, calling for action to damage national security, and encouraging actions harmful to national security via media and the Internet.

Kalesnikava and Znak's relatives, friends, journalists, and supporters were prevented from entering the Minsk regional courthouse where the proceedings are taking place.

Both are members of the opposition Coordination Council that was set up after the disputed election with the stated aim of facilitating a peaceful transfer of power.

They have rejected the charges as politically motivated.

The United States has called the charges "manufactured."

Russia's Sputnik news agency posted a short video from the courtroom before the trial started in which Kalesnikava is seen dancing in the glass cage and displaying a "heart" sign with her hands.

A day earlier, a candidate to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Annalena Baerbock, demanded via Instagram that the trial be open to the public and independent observers "because, according to all that we know, a fair trial based on the rule of law is not going to be the case."

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

Kalesnikava was arrested on September 7 in downtown Minsk by masked men and taken to the Ukrainian border the next day, along with two associates. Ordered to cross the border, Kalesnikava refused, tearing up her passport instead. She was then taken back to Minsk and jailed.

Znak, who was also arrested in September, was previously charged with public calls for actions aimed at harming the country's security, sovereignty, territorial integrity, national security, and defense.

Mass demonstrations engulfed the country after Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory and a sixth consecutive term in an August 2020 election.

The opposition said its candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran for president after her husband was jailed while trying to mount a candidacy of his own, won the vote.

Tsikhanouskaya left the country for Lithuania shortly after the election due to security concerns.

Other opposition leaders have been forced from Belarus or jailed, and thousands of Belarusians, including dozens of journalists covering the protests, have been detained and hundreds beaten in detention and on the streets.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence, and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some detainees.

Lukashenka has denied any wrongdoing in the vote and issued promises of reform down the road in what the opposition has called stalling tactics. But he has refused to negotiate directly with the opposition over stepping down and holding new elections.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and postelection crackdown.

Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrived in Warsaw on August 4 under the diplomatic protection of Poland, after she refused her team’s orders to be sent home from the Tokyo Games due to fear for her safety in Belarus.

The Olympian's plight has turned into a major story of the games and again focused international attention on strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s stifling of dissent amid a crackdown against opposition activists, media, and civil society following a disputed presidential election last year.

Tsimanouskaya took refuge in the Polish Embassy in Tokyo on August 2, after refusing to allow Belarusian team officials to force her onto a flight to Minsk after she criticized them. Two days later the 24-year-old athlete boarded a plane to Europe, reaching Warsaw via a stopover in Vienna.

"Krystsina Tsimanouskaya landed safely in Warsaw. She would like to thank the diplomatic and consular services involved for planning and efficiently carrying out her trip. Poland is once again showing its solidarity and support," Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz wrote on Twitter.

Poland has granted the sprinter and her husband, who fled to Poland via Ukraine, humanitarian visas.

While still in Japan, Tsimanouskaya told AP in a video interview that team officials had “made it clear that, upon return home, I would definitely face some form of punishment.”

She said the tipping point for her was when team managers told her that "other people" had ordered them to send her home from the Olympics and they were "merely ordered to make it happen."

She said she feared for her safety if she returned to Belarus.

The head of Belarus's delegation at the Olympics, Dzmitry Dauhalionak, declined to comment except to say that he has "no words," according to AP.

SEE ALSO:

More Belarusian Athletes Spurn Homeland In Shadow Of Olympic Scandal

Earlier, Belarus’s National Olympic Committee told a state-run news agency that it was closely monitoring the situation and cooperating with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has launched an investigation into Tsimanouskaya's accusations.

The IOC said on August 4 that it would question two Belarus team officials who were allegedly involved in trying to remove Tsimanouskaya from the Olympics. IOC spokesman Mark Adams says it’s part of a disciplinary case opened "to establish the facts" in Tsimanouskaya's case.

The probe will hear from the two officials alleged to have told Tsimanouskaya she would have to return home early because of critical comments she made on social media. The IOC identified them as Artur Shumak and Yury Maisevich.

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Tsimanouskaya’s troubles began when she said her coaches told her she would be participating in an event she had never competed in. She then criticized the move on social media and accused officials of an attempted kidnapping to forcibly repatriate her.

Tsimanouskaya dismissed any notion that she had planned to seek a way to depart to a third country.

"Everything that is happening now absolutely wasn’t in my plans," Tsimanouskaya told AP.

The sprinter, however, declined to link her problems to the political struggle in Belarus.

"I don’t want to get involved in politics," she said. "For me, my career is important, only sports is important, and I’m only thinking about my future, about how I can continue my career."

She added that she expects to be kicked out of the national team but said for now "the only thing that concerns me is my safety."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, AFP, AP, and Reuters

The United States said that it believes Iranian forces hijacked the Panama-flagged Asphalt Princess tanker in the Gulf of Oman but is not in a position to confirm.

"We can confirm that personnel have left the Panama-flagged Asphalt Princess, this commercial vessel that was seized yesterday. We believe that these personnel were Iranian, but we're not in a position to confirm this at this time, " State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on August 4.

The British Navy's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations on August 4 said the hijackers who boarded the Asphalt Princess off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) had left the vessel, without elaborating.

It had warned of a “potential hijack" under unclear circumstances the day before.

SEE ALSO:

NATO, EU Join Criticism Of Iran After Deadly Tanker Attack

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) denied that its forces or allies were behind any hijacking on the Asphalt Princess.

Any incident is an attempt by Western countries and Israel "to prepare the public opinion of the international community for hostile action” against Iran, the IRGC said in a statement run on state media on August 3.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzade also called the claims of a possible hijacking "completely suspicious.”

The incident comes after Israel, the United States, and Britain accused Iran of involvement in the July 29 attack on the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime.

Iran denied any involvement in the attack on the Mercer Street, which the U.S. Navy said was carried out with a suspected drone in international waters off Oman. The attack left one British and one Romanian crew member dead.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, echoing comments from Britain, said on August 2 that there would be a collective response to the attack on the Mercer Street.

Tehran said it would respond swiftly to any threat to its security.

With reporting by Lloyds List, AP, AFP, and Reuters

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said that she understands she "can disappear at any moment" as a result of her resistance to strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, but that the movement against his rule will "continue without me."

Tsikhanouskaya, who considers herself the real winner of the disputed August 2020 presidential vote that gave Lukashenka a sixth-straight term, made the comments on August 3 after meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London.

When asked about the death of Belarusian activist Vital Shyshou in Kyiv, which has led to allegations that the Belarusian authorities might be responsible, Tsikhanouskaya said she was withholding judgment until she sees the results of the official murder investigation being conducted by Ukraine.

But alluding to the brutal crackdown on dissent by Lukashenka following the August vote, she said, "It is our pain when our Belarusian people are being kidnapped or being killed by the regime's cronies."

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The 38-year-old opposition leader, who left Belarus out of fears for her safety amid a brutal state-orchestrated crackdown on dissent amid mass protests over the election, also said she knows she could be next.

"I understand that I can disappear at any moment," she said. "But I should do what I am doing. I can't stop, because I feel responsibility for the future of my country. The same as all those Belarusians who are fighting at the moment feel it's their responsibility. But I know that even if I disappear one day, this movement will continue without me."

In separate comments, Tsikhanouskaya said that after nearly a year of protests against the outcome of the landslide presidential vote, widely considered to be fraudulent, she still believes that a peaceful transition from Lukashenka can end Belarusians' "hell."

"I absolutely believe in a nonviolent transition of power," she told Reuters after meeting with members of the Belarusian diaspora in England. "What is going on in Belarus is our pain. We want this hell finished as soon as possible in our country."

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Tsikhanouskaya told the news agency that "when you put enough pressure on the regime, there will be no other way out but to start dialogue with civil society."

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters have been detained in Belarus in the past year, while many opposition figures have been locked up or forced to flee. Media and civil society groups have been targeted through raids and arrests.

Johnson told Tsikhanouskaya during their meeting that Britain was "very much in support of what you are doing" and condemned Lukashenka's "severe human rights violations and persecution of pro-democracy figures."

After the talks, Tsikhanouskaya described the British prime minister as "a person who really shares common values with Belarusians," saying Johnson "let me understand that [Britain] will be with us."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, AP, and Reuters

NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh activist Erbol Eskhozhin has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison over alleged links to the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement, as authorities continue to round up the group's supporters.

The DVK is led from abroad by fugitive former banker Mukhtar Ablyazov.

The Saryarqa district court in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, pronounced the sentence against Eskhozhin on August 3.

Eskhozhin proclaimed his innocence in his final statement at the trial, which was held online due to coronavirus restrictions.

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"I do not regret any of my deeds. If I showed my compatriots that they can use their constitutional rights and express their thoughts freely, then I consider myself the winner of this case," Eskhozhin said.

The 44-year-old Eskhozhin went on trial in April.

He was arrested in December and charged with taking part in activities of the DVK, which was labeled extremist and banned by Kazakh officials in 2018.

In December, the charge was changed to organizing activities for the DVK, which is an offense punishable by up to six years in prison.

Eskhozhin has rejected the charge as politically motivated.

In recent years, a number of Kazakh activists have been convicted for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and its associated Koshe (Street) Party.

Ablyazov, the former head of BTA Bank, has been living in Europe since 2009 and is sought for alleged financial crimes by Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

In December, a Russian court sentenced him to 15 years in prison in absentia on embezzlement charges.

Uzbek authorities have arrested two police officers in the southern Surxondaryo region for allegedly beating a detainee to death.

The Prosecutor-General's Office said on July 29 that the officers were charged with abuse of office and premeditated infliction of serious bodily harm, which led to the death in custody of Hasan Hushmatov.

Police brutality in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic has been an issue for decades.

President Shavkat Mirziyoev has sought to portray himself as a reformer since taking over Central Asia's most populous nation of 32 million people after his predecessor Islam Karimov's death in 2016.

Those efforts have included public statements and muted changes targeting Uzbekistan's woeful human rights record.

Mirziyoev signed a decree in June on "additional efforts to reveal and prevent torture cases" and ordered the creation of a commission led by the country's ombudsman to supervise its implementation.

Last week, the Prosecutor-General's Office in the country's Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakistan said it had launched a probe into the death in police custody of a local man in May.

On July 25, another man died in police hands.

Nursoat Muhammadiev's relatives told RFE/RL that police insist he died while being treated at a facility for drug addicts. But they say his body showed signs of having been beaten.

The chairman of the Tashkent-based rights group Ezgulik (Compassion), Abdurahmon Tashanov, told RFE/RL that police brutality has deep roots in Uzbekistan and it will take a long time for efforts to eradicate torture to bring tangible results.

"Just an initiative by the president is not enough," Tashanov said. "If police methods, in general, do not dramatically change, torture in custody will continue."

Russian opposition politician Lev Shlosberg of the Yabloko party and his colleague Nikolai Kuzmin have been barred from running in upcoming elections for the Pskov regional parliament.

Some politicians in the western Russian region say the decision was made due to Shlosberg and Kuzmin's support for jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, whose network of organizations has been deemed by the authorities as "extremist"

Yabloko said on its Telegram channel on August 3 that the party will provide Shlosberg and Kuzmin with all necessary support.

Also on August 3, a territorial election commission in Moscow registered Shlosberg as a candidate for the parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma.

Shlosberg told the Open Media news outlet that he would appeal the Pskov election commission's decision.

"I do not know if their decision to link me with [Navalny's] Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) can affect my State Duma campaign, where I have been registered at this point. All other facts will be appealed in court," Shlosberg said.

Shlosberg is one of the best-known figures in the liberal Yabloko party and a regional lawmaker who has openly criticized the Russian government for years.

On September 19, Russia will vote to choose members of the State Duma, 39 regional parliaments, and nine regional governors.

In the run-up to the elections, the Kremlin has cracked down on opposition political figures and independent media.

In June, a Moscow court ruled Navalny’s political network should be labeled “extremist” in what the opposition politician’s team has called a sign of a “truly new level” of lawlessness in the country.

Also in June, Putin endorsed a law that bars leaders and founders of organizations declared extremist or terrorist by Russian courts from running for elective posts for a period of five years. Other members or employees of such organizations face a three-year ban.

The two factors together prevent people associated with Navalny's FBK and his network of regional political offices across Russia from seeking public office. It also carries lengthy prison terms for activists who have worked with the organizations.

With reporting by Dozhd

A Russian family that has resettled in Spain says it was forced to flee their homeland after taking part in a commercial promoting a chain of grocery stores.

The family members were introduced in the advertisement as Yuma, her grown-up daughters Mila and Alina, and Alina's girlfriend Ksyusha.

The mother, Yuma, said the four started to receive death threats via telephone and social networks after the commercial was posted online.

On July 4, the VkusVill grocery chain removed the commercial from its website and Instagram page and offered apologies for what called "a mistake that exposed the unprofessionalism of some employees."

Yuma, who wanted to avoid using her last name, told RFE/RL on August 3 that her family is now in Barcelona, where they feel safe.

"Here there is no need to hide our happiness to be a family. We have not made a final decision yet if we will stay in Spain and for how long, if we will. But we do not plan to return to Russia in the foreseeable future," Yuma told RFE/RL.

VkusVill placed a series of advertisements under a "Recipes For Family Happiness" rubric on its website in late June, where Yuma's and other families were shown.

Yuma was described as a psychologist and LGBT activist with two daughters, one of whom planned to marry her girlfriend.

Yuma said in the advertisement that "family is not just blood kinship or a stamp in your passport."

"Family is people we love. Those who always can support and cover," Yuma said in the commercial.

It remains unclear where exactly in Russia the family lived.

Unknown individuals sent threats of violence to VkusVill and to the women.

CHEBOKSARY, Russia -- A court in the Republic of Chuvashia in Russia's Volga region has fined an RFE/RL correspondent in a case in which she was previously acquitted.

A court in the republic's capital, Cheboksary, fined Darya Komarova 10,000 rubles ($137) on August 2 after finding her guilty of taking part in an unsanctioned public gathering organized a year ago by an ally of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called the latest punishment part of a "systemic harassment" of journalists by Russian authorities.

"Darya Komarova was only doing her job as a journalist when she reported on a candidate’s meeting with potential voters 11 months ago. We support Darya as she endures this legal harassment," Fly said. "This systemic harassment of brave journalists like Daria across Russia only serves to deprive the Russian people of independent information about their country and political options."

Navalny's team leader in the city, Semyon Kochkin, met with potential voters in Cheboksary in August 2020 to promote himself as a candidate for the city council.

Komarova, a correspondent for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, has insisted she was covering the event as part of her journalistic work, not taking part.

Komarova was also charged earlier this year with participating in two other unsanctioned rallies in Cheboksary in January, when demonstrators protested the arrest of Navalny in Moscow after his return from medical treatment abroad for a poisoning.

The Lenin district court initially ruled that Komarova was working, not participating in the events in question.

The case regarding the August rally eventually reached Chuvashia's Supreme Court following an appeal of all three cases against Komarova by the republic's Interior Ministry.

On June 22, the Supreme Court cited the absence of the date and registration number on her assignment papers to reverse the acquittal.

Border guards in EU-member Lithuania have begun turning back illegal migrants attempting to enter the country from neighboring Belarus, as Brussels expressed concerns about Minsk using migrants as a political instrument.

Some 180 migrants, most of them Iraqi citizens, were directed back to Belarus on August 3 on orders from the Lithuanian Interior Ministry, which authorized border guards to use force if necessary.

"Anyone who tries to enter Lithuanian territory illegally will be refused entry and directed to the nearest operational international border control point," Border Guard Service head Rustamas Liubajevas told reporters.

Migrants will be able to apply for asylum legally at the border stations or at diplomatic missions. Liubajevas said that no force was used in sending the migrants back to Belarus on August 3.

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Belarus Accused Of 'Provocation' As Record Numbers Of Illegal Migrants Reach Lithuania

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The development comes amid a surge in illegal crossings from Belarus that Lithuanian and European officials say are being orchestrated by strongman leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka in retaliation for EU sanctions over his government's crackdown on the political opposition following Belarus's presidential election nearly a year ago, widely considered to be fraudulent.

"The whole situation at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border is of concern to the EU," Adalbert Jahnz, the European Commission's spokesman for migration, home affairs, and citizenship, said in Brussels on August 3.

"We have repeatedly rejected the instrumentalization of migrants by the Belarusian regime," he said.

Jahnz said that the European Commission is working with the Iraqi authorities regarding increased flights from Iraq to Belarus that are believed to be carrying many of the Iraqi citizens crossing into the European Union.

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The Massive Migrant Surge From Belarus Into The EU

Jahnz also said the commission sees the implementation of proposed restrictions on Iraq and other countries regarding the readmission of migrants as key to resolving the situation on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border.

In announcing Lithuania's decision to authorize the use of force on August 3, Deputy Interior Minister Arnoldas Abramavicius told reporters that the measure "depends on the circumstances," including the possibility that border guards "will face aggression" from migrants.

The announcement came one day after a record 287 migrants crossed from Belarus as EU Commissioner of Home Affairs Yiva Johansson visited Lithuania to help tackle the crisis.

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Belarusian Journalist Seized After Ryanair Jet 'Forcibly' Diverted To Minsk

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“This is a provocation of the Lukashenka regime," Johansson said in Lithuania, where the European Union pledged millions of euros in assistance to help Vilnius address the problem. "We must show that there is no free access to EU territory."

More than 4,000 migrants have been detained by Lithuanian authorities so far this year, officials say, compared to a total of 81 in 2020. The 679-kilometer Lithuanian-Belarusian border is mostly without physical barriers.

More than two-thirds of them are Iraqi nationals who appear to have arrived in Minsk from increased direct flights from Baghdad.

Belarus is said to be preparing more direct flights from Al-Basra and two other Iraqi cities.

With reporting by AP and AFP