Watchdog

On December 10, Russian activist and punk musician Aikhal Ammosov posted an Instagram photo of himself calling for the release of a Yakut shaman being held in a psychiatric clinic after staging high-profile protests against President Vladimir Putin.

Ammosov, whose real name is Igor Ivanov, was set to appear in court in the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk three days later to face charges of "discrediting" Russia's military -- charges that could result in a five-year prison sentence if he is convicted.

But Ammosov, 30, did not make it to court. And his friends and fellow activists say he has disappeared, even though he had been preparing to attend the December 13 hearing.

"Yes, he was going to court," Ammosov's fellow activist, Kyundel Ottuyev, told RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities. "I asked him back in the fall if he wanted to leave the country; he refused. Many advised him to run away; he always refused. He said, 'I'm not a coward and will go to the end.' He wrote that he was not afraid of prison."

Ammosov's associates say they fear for his safety and that shortly before he went silent a day after his December 10 Instagram post -- his final to date -- he warned on social media that he might disappear.

"As for the [recent] threats to Aikhal, I don't know, honestly," Ottuyev told Siberia.Realities. "I have absolutely no idea where he might be…. Maybe they've killed him already or are holding him in a basement and torturing him."

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Hundreds of thousands of Russians are believed to have fled the country since Putin launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, due both to the increasingly repressive political environment and to avoid conscription.

But Ottuyev said Ammosov was unlikely to have fled the country.

"He himself wrote on social media: ‘If I disappear, it means they killed me,'" Ottuyev said.

RFE/RL was unable to locate this alleged social media post, though another associate contacted by a reporter said they had seen a recent Instagram Stories post by Ammosov indicating that he might disappear. The associate said they forgot to make a screenshot of the post, which is no longer available.

'Yakutian Punk Against War'

The December 13 court hearing at which Ammosov was set to appear involved the criminal charges following his arrest in August for allegedly attempting to raise a banner in Yakutsk that read: "Yakutian Punk Against War."

Under a law signed by Putin shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he could face up to three years in prison for "public actions" allegedly "aimed at discrediting" the Russian armed forces.

The leader of a punk group called Crispy Newspaper, Ammosov has twice been previously convicted of "hooliganism" for anti-war graffiti.

In an interview with Siberia.Realities in May, he said that following his detention, he had been held in solitary confinement for five days and threatened with a taser and a gun.

"They tried to break me, mentally," he said.

Ammosov told Siberia.Realities that he began stealthily carrying out his anti-war protests after Russia launched its invasion on February 24.

"I even quit my job…in order to fight against the war full-time," he said. "They searched for me for two months, more or less. I was in hiding, staying in different places every night."

In his guerrilla protests of the war, Ammosov has lit candles at a memorial commemorating Kyiv as a "hero city" in World War II to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine and staged a picket with a sign showing a coffin and a caption reading: "The groom has arrived."

"The scary thing is that these cases against me are being used to shut up everyone who is for peace," Ammosov told Siberia.Realities in May. "They catch people like me, and everyone in Yakutsk becomes afraid. We are too far from Moscow and St. Petersburg. There is no protection here…. There are practically no human rights defenders at all."

Adapted from the Russian by RFE/RL's Carl Schreck, who contributed reporting.

The whereabouts of five female university students in the western Iranian city of Sanandaj are unknown following their arrest earlier this month after they took part in a rally against the execution of protesters, the Union Council of Iranian Students said.

The women were arrested by security forces between December 10 and 14, and the council said no information has been released about which security agency arrested them or their whereabouts and condition.

The council called their detention a kidnapping.

Bita Veisi was the first to be arrested after the rally at Sanandaj Technical College on December 10 in protest of the execution of Mohsen Shekar two days earlier. The students chanted slogans demanding the return of his body and "Death to the dictator."

Video images released later the same day purportedly show that the students left the campus after an attack by security forces and continued their protest in the streets of the city.

Shekari was executed after an appeal of his sentence on a charge of injuring a security officer was rejected by the Supreme Court. Human rights groups said Shekari's sentence was based on a coerced confession after a grossly unfair process and a sham trial.

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The other four women -- Tina Khedri, Sana Khodamoradi, Rezvan Bazaniqaleh, and Hanieh Chahardoli -- were arrested by the security forces in front of the university dormitory without a judicial warrant.

The unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody has swept the country over the past three months.

Amini died after being detained for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly. Eyewitness reports said she was beaten while being arrested by police, while the authorities said she died of "underlying diseases."

Security forces have waged a violent crackdown on protesters around the country, killing scores, injuring hundreds, and detaining several thousand people.

As the scattered antigovernment protests rage across Iran for a 12th week, universities and schools have become the main venue for clashes between protesters and the authorities.

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The activist HRANA news agency said that as of December 15 at least 637 students had been arrested during the unrest.

Several reports during the past three months have been published about the bodies of dead students being found at various universities, including those in Shiraz, Ahvaz, and Tehran.

In the latest case, relatives of Donya Farhadi, a student living in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz, said on December 15 that after she disappeared for a week her body was found by the Karun River.

In most cases, the authorities say the cause of death of these students is an accident, suicide, or fall from a height without providing further details.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda