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Henadz Yakavitski is one of four people to have been executed in Belarus this year (file photo).
Henadz Yakavitski is one of four people to have been executed in Belarus this year (file photo).

The United Nations has condemned recent executions carried out by authorities in Belarus.

The European Union confirmed last week that Belarus carried out a total of three executions during the month of November -- raising the total number of executions in the former Soviet republic during 2016 to four.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, said in a statement on December 5 that the "three executions testify once again to the blatant disdain of Belarusian authorities for the right to life and also their staunch non-cooperation with the international human rights system.”

The three executed in November included death row inmates Henadz Yakavitski, 28-year-old Ivan Kulesh, and 31-year-old Syarhey Khymyaleuski. A fourth prisoner, Syarhey Ivanou, was executed in Belarus on April 18.

"Once again, I call upon the Belarusian authorities to adopt soonest a moratorium on the death penalty,” Haraszti said.

The EU -- along with Amnesty International and other human rights organizations -- has been calling on Minsk to join a moratorium on the death penalty for years.

Before April, an execution had not been carried out under the Belarusian legal system since November 2014.

According to rights groups, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death in Belarus since the early 1990s.

Women's attire has been tightly controlled in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 (file photo).
Women's attire has been tightly controlled in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 (file photo).

An Iranian court has sentenced 12 people working in the fashion industry to jail for posting images on the Internet, according to a report in local media.

The eight men and four women were given sentences ranging from five months to six years in jail by a court in the southern city of Shiraz on December 5, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported.

Mahmoud Taravat, a lawyer for all 12, told ILNA that they were also banned from working in the fashion industry and travelling abroad for two years after serving their sentences.

Taravat said the 12 were convicted on charges including spreading prostitution and promoting corruption by publishing obscene images online and by spreading a "Western-style culture of nudity."

Iran's judiciary launched a crackdown on "un-Islamic" behavior by fashion models earlier this year.

In October, authorities said they had detained 11 members of a modeling network.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the network was involved in producing and publishing pornographic pictures and spreading "depravity" in society.

Based on reporting by ILNA and BBC Persian

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"Watchdog" is a blog with a singular mission -- to monitor the latest developments concerning human rights, civil society, and press freedom. We'll pay particular attention to reports concerning countries in RFE/RL's broadcast region.

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