Watchdog

Small gatherings have been held in several Russian cities to mark the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, even as the Russian government continues carrying out the harshest crackdown on dissent in the post-Soviet period.

Since 2006, the Memorial human rights group -- which has been banned and shut down by the government of President Vladimir Putin -- has organized gatherings under the name Returning the Names at which people read out the names of victims of repression under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

This year, about 200 locals in the western Siberian city of Tomsk gathered for the first Returning the Names event since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. Small gatherings were also held in Pskov, Kirov, and Ulyanovsk.

In Moscow, city authorities banned the gathering, citing anti-pandemic restrictions on public gatherings that remain in place despite the lifting of other COVID-19 measures. Memorial held its ceremony online.

"This event is about the fact that nothing is more precious than human life and that the government did not have the right to murder people in 1937 and it does not have that right in 2022," Memorial wrote in a post on Twitter.

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In Kazan, authorities withdrew their permission for a Returning the Names gathering just one day before the event. In Perm, an exhibition about political repressions that was to open in a city library was cancelled. In Samara, police detained activist Andrei Zhvankin for conducting a one-man picket at an authorized protest for displaying a banner reading, "Putin's repressions are a continuation of Stalin's."

Returning the Names events were held in numerous cities abroad, including Berlin, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Paris, Vilnius, and others. At many of the events, speakers spoke against Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Under Stalin, millions of Soviet citizens were killed, tortured, imprisoned, or exiled by the Soviet state.

Nostalgia for Stalin and for the Soviet Union has flourished under Putin, a former KGB officer who has praised the dictator as an "effective manager."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has told the family of RFE/RL journalist Reza Haghighatnejad that his body was secretly buried at a location outside Shiraz.

On October 30, Radio Farda posted on Twitter a photograph of the purported burial site that the IGRC had sent to Haghighatnejad's father.

Haghighatnejad, 45, died of cancer in Berlin on October 17. His body was repatriated to Iran for burial on October 25.

The body, however, was not turned over to his parents after it arrived in Iran, and there were unconfirmed reports it had been seized by the IRGC and taken to an unknown location.

On October 27, the journalist's mother, Beygumjan Raeisi, published a video in which she said her son's body had "been abducted by the authorities at the airport."

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Haghighatnejad's family was not allowed to see the body or participate in the burial.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on October 28 called on Iranian authorities to release Haghighatnejad's body "immediately" to his family and said the episode showed the extent of intimidation of the press.

"The treatment of Reza Haghighatnejad underscores just how much Iran's leadership fears journalists even after their death," he said.

RFE/RL President and CEO Jamie Fly called the Iranian regime’s treatment of Haghighatnejad's family deplorable.

“The Iranian regime’s callous cruelty towards Reza and his family is utterly reprehensible,” Fly said. “They deserved better, and I hope they find peace.”

Haghighatnejad left Iran amid increased pressure on journalists and started working with Persian-language media outside the country. He began reporting for Radio Farda in 2019.

He was not able to return to Iran because of his journalistic activities.

The incident comes as Iran cracks down on protests triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police.