In 1874, a travel diary of Iran’s ruler Naser al-Din Shah was published in English for the first time, offering a fascinating insight into the shah’s trip through Russia, Western Europe, and the Caucasus that had taken place the previous year. It was the first trip of its kind by an Iranian ruler.

Below, largely in the shah's own words, are details of the trip, which would play a part in transforming Iran. Photographs used in this story were taken in the places the shah visited at approximately the time he saw them.

"Thanks be to God, we have escaped from the high sea and have entered a large river named the Volga, which has a great charm," Naser wrote of his first glimpses of the Russian Empire after traveling by ship across the Caspian Sea from Iran in May 1873. "This stream is very wide; so much so that…an ordinary musket ball would not carry from bank to bank."

“In each village a church has been built, very fine and majestic. The occupation of the people of these villages is that of fishing," the shah noted in his first impressions of ordinary Russians.

As they steamed close to some of the villages, Naser said “the inhabitants flocked to the riverbank and cried out, 'Hurrah!'"

When the mayor of a Volga town brought out the traditional gifts of bread and salt, the shah says the date of his arrival was inscribed into the serving tray.

From southern Russia, the shah and his retinue were transported by rail, which was apparently a novel experience for him.

“The pace of the train was such that we overtook the flying crows,” Naser wrote in wonder.

The shah apparently learned the vocabulary of the railroad for the first time in Russia.

“A ‘station’ is a place where the trains stop to have their wheels greased and where the passengers take coffee and refreshments,” he noted.

In another passage, he described a tunnel they passed through as a “hole in the mountain.”

As the train neared Moscow, the formal aspects of the tour began, in which the shah and his entourage put on their dress uniforms and were shown the Kremlin, then presumably invited to the Bolshoi Theatre, where he witnessed ballet for the first time.

“The curtain rose and a strange world made its appearance. A large number of dancing women set to dancing. This dancing and performance is called a ballet, i.e. a performance and dance without speaking."

The specifics of the art form, he wrote, were "not possible to describe.”

In St. Petersburg, the shah’s travelogue becomes frustratingly diplomatic as he meets with Tsar Aleksander II, a man “tall of stature and majestic, who speaks with great gravity and walks with a stately gait.”

Conversations between the two sovereigns are clearly considered off-limits by the shah and referred to only in passing as “long and pleasant.” In fact, much hung on the interaction between the two rulers, whose countries had only recently reached a delicate peace after centuries of conflict over control of the Caucasus.

In St. Petersburg, theater performances were apparently somewhat bawdier than the ballet that had enchanted the shah in Moscow. One performer, described as a “fat woman clothed in tights, with naked bosom and legs,” rode a bicycle around flaming bottles of wine set on the floor of the stage.

“Ultimately, she fell over from the vehicle to the floor and her skirts took fire,” the shah noted.

The Iranian ruler seemed especially taken with Peterhof, a royal residence outside St. Petersburg.

“It was a place like paradise,” the shah gushed amid a detailed description of the fountains and leafy pathways that stretch to the Gulf of Finland.

On May 29, the shah departed west and looped through today's Germany, Great Britain, France, Switzerland Italy, Greece, and Turkey before heading toward Georgia on his way back to Iran.

The shah’s arrival by ship off Poti, in today’s western Georgia, was marked by celestial drama when lightning struck the sea just a few meters from the royal boat, “with a roar equal to that of a thousand cannons.”

On shore in Georgia, the shah was greeted by “various tribes and nationalities” that included Circassians, Lezgins, Armenians, Georgians, and Daghestani Muslims, as well as Mingrelians, an ethnicity that fascinated the shah.

“This region is part of the country of the Open-Heads,” Naser wrote of the Mingrelians. “The whole of the inhabitants of the Open-Head country go bare-headed. Never do the women, men, or children adopt the practice of wearing hats or caps on their heads.”

In almost the next breath, the shah appeared to contradict that bare-headed claim by describing Mingrelian warriors as wearing “a red cloth round their heads by way of turban, a pistol, and a large knife in their sashes."

Their uniform he said, "thus resembled those of the Zouaves in France and of the tribes of Hindustan, but their muskets were needle guns made in the factory of Tula.”

The shah arrived by train to Tbilisi on August 29 and seemed to be pleasantly surprised by its appearance.

“Fifty years ago, this town was very wretched and filthy,” he claimed without specifying how he knew its condition before his own birth. “Now, by degrees, private houses and public buildings, schools and colleges, broad streets paved with stone are being constructed.”

As in Poti, the shah was struck by Tbilisi's ethnic mix of “Persians, Georgians, Russians, Daghestanis, Circassians, Germans, Armenians.”

Then, as now, Georgian fruit stood out for its quality. The shah singled out watermelons, grapes, and pears, as well as the cucumbers of Tbilisi.

But setting off toward Baku, in today’s Azerbaijan, the shah paints a picture of sunbaked desolation on the road east.

“Once out of Tbilisi, there was not a single trace of the works of man on either side of our road: As far as the eye could penetrate, all were melancholy plains or brown mountains,” he wrote.

In the territory of today’s Azerbaijan, the shah apparently no longer felt the need for diplomatic tact, or was fed up with being on the road.

“Gardens surround the town of Ganja, but within it the houses are poor and miserable,” he complained.

The shah stayed in an apartment he described as “a very wretched tenement on the top of a hill.”

On his last landward leg home, the shah's patience seemed at an end.

“The whole road to Baku was dry and bad. In fact, a plain and mountains so dry and so wretched we had neither seen nor heard of. Our journey today was over a part of the country called the Burying Ground -- a fit name for such a region.”

The shah paused only briefly in Baku before boarding a ship for home.

The trip through several empires reportedly left a significant impression on the shah and was widely seen as a diplomatic success. Soon after his return to Iran, Naser began work on establishing a small railway near Tehran.

Iranians are casting ballots in an early presidential election triggered by the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash at a time of growing frustration among many over a lack of freedoms, declining living standards, and a faltering economy.

All four names on the ballot have been vetted and approved by the Guardians Council, an unelected constitutional watchdog whose members are directly and indirectly appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

No candidate is expected to secure enough votes on June 28 to be declared the outright winner in the tightly controlled contest.

A candidate needs to win at least 50 percent of the votes to win the race. A potential run-off election has been scheduled for July 5.

The election appears to be a three-way race between conservative Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, hard-line former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and reformist lawmaker Masud Pezeshkian.

Last-ditch efforts by conservatives to rally behind a consensus candidate failed on the eve of the election, with neither Qalibaf nor Jalili willing to drop out in favor of the other.

Conservatives have expressed concern that the lack of unity could split the vote, benefiting the lone reformist hopeful Pezeshkian.

Qalibaf is a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Air Force and is the longest-serving mayor of Tehran.

He is a traditional conservative who is running for president for the fourth time in the past 20 years. Qalibaf has faced many corruption allegations throughout his career, though none has dented his relationship with Khamenei.

Jalili serves as Khamenei’s personal representative on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). He was the SNSC’s secretary between 2007 and 2013, during which time he led the Iranian delegation in failed talks with the West on Tehran’s nuclear program.

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Jalili represents the hard-line sect of the conservative camp and has never held elected office.

Pezeshkian has been a member of parliament since 2008 and served as deputy speaker between 2016 and 2020, when moderates and reformists had a majority in the legislature.

He has questioned Iran’s methods of enforcing the hijab, the Islamic head scarf for women, and spoken in favor of negotiating with the West.

But he also supports the principles of the Islamic republic and says he will follow Khamenei’s policies if elected.

• RFE/RL's Radio Farda
• AP
• Reuters

Iranians are voting on June 28 to replace late President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a May helicopter crash in the country's northwest along with the foreign minister and several other officials.

The outcome of the election is unlikely to result in major policy shifts, but it could have an impact on the succession to the 85-year-old Khamenei, who has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989.

Opinion polls project a slightly higher voter participation than in the last presidential election in 2021, which saw a record-low turnout of just under 49 percent. Critics say the real number was likely even lower.

France-based political commentator Mojtaba Najafi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that because disillusioned voters were unlikely to show up en masse to vote, Pezeshkian was unlikely to capitalize on the conservative split to win the election in the first round.

He added, however, that Pezeshkian had a good chance of making it to the second round to face one of the two conservative candidates.

The political establishment has long maintained it derives its legitimacy from strong voter turnout, but poor participation in recent elections and deadly protests against the Islamic republic have challenged the legitimacy of the current leadership.

Radio Farda listeners on June 28 explained why they had chosen to vote or opted against it.

One woman said taking part in a “rubber-stamp election” where “our votes do not have the slightest impact” would only serve to legitimize the political establishment.

“The president does not have the power needed to implement the changes that people want,” another listener said.

One voter said she went to the ballot box to vote for Pezeshkian mostly out of fear that a hard-liner like Jalili would become president.

Another person acknowledged that while past votes had failed to result in significant change, he still held out hope that “a more moderate government will allow society to become stronger.”

Voting is also taking place amid the backdrop of a war between Israel and Tehran-backed Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, in the Gaza Strip, and global pressure over advances made in Iran's nuclear power program.

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Khamenei has been calling on eligible voters, which number at just over 61.4 million people, to show up in droves to project an image of “a strong Iran.”

“The Islamic republic’s durability, strength, dignity, and reputation depend on the presence of people,” Khamenei told reporters after casting his ballot on June 28.

Dissidents at home and abroad have called for a boycott, arguing that voting in past elections has failed to deliver change.

In Iran, the supreme leader has the final say on all state matters and the president does not have much sway on many key issues.

Polls will close at 6 p.m. local time. Historically, voting hours have been extended through the evening but never past midnight.

Raisi, who many Iranians refer to as the "Butcher of Tehran" for his alleged role in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 when he was Tehran's deputy prosecutor, died along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several other officials when their helicopter crashed on May 19.

With reporting by Hannah Kaviani of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda

The United States on June 27 issued fresh sanctions against Iran in response to Tehran further expanding its nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

"Over the past month, Iran has announced steps to further expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose," Blinken said. "We remain committed to never letting Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, and we are prepared to use all elements of national power to ensure that outcome."

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The new sanctions take aim at three companies based in the United Arab Emirates and 11 vessels used in the export of Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products, Blinken said.

Earlier this month, the Group of Seven nations warned Iran against advancing its nuclear enrichment program and said it would be ready to impose new measures if Tehran were to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia.

Iran rebuked the statement, calling on the G7 to distance itself from "destructive policies of the past."

Blinken in his June 27 announcement also cited the G7 statement, saying Iran “must cease its escalations with regard to its nuclear program as well as its other destabilizing actions.”

Blinken said Iran’s actions to increase its enrichment capacity are all the more concerning in light of statements by Iranian officials suggesting potential changes to Iran’s nuclear doctrine.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes, but government officials caused alarm recently by saying it could change its "nuclear doctrine" if it is attacked or its existence is threatened by Israel.

Blinken also said Tehran’s “continued failure to cooperate" with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was worrisome. The board of governors of the IAEA on June 5 passed a resolution calling on Iran to step up cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and reverse its decision to bar inspectors.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry slammed the vote, describing it as a “political and unconstructive” move.

With reporting by Reuters

Alireza Zakani, the hard-line mayor of Tehran, has said he is withdrawing from Iran’s presidential race -- the second to announce backing out of the June 28 election -- to help the conservative camp reach a consensus candidate.

Zakani made the announcement in a statement posted on social media on June 26, less than a day after Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, who served as a deputy to late President Ebrahim Raisi, dropped out of the race.

Iran is holding a presidential election on June 28 following the death of the ultraconservative Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. Elections in the Islamic republic are tightly controlled, with candidates being preselected by an unelected body dominated by hard-liners.

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The six candidates cleared to run are all men, most are hard-liners, and some have ties to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of Iran's armed forces.

"I want them [the main candidates] to look for unity and not to ignore the demands of the forces of the revolution and prevent the formation of a 'third Rouhani government" Zakani said in his post on X, referring to moderate former President Hassan Rouhani.

Hard-liners have accused the sole reformist hopeful Masud Pezeshkian of looking to continue the politics of Rouhani, who was strongly criticized by conservatives during his eight years in power.

Zakani also urged conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and hard-line former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to "unite" in a bid to stop Pezeshkian from winning the June 28 election.

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Qazizadeh Hashemi announced late on June 26 that he too had withdrawn from the race in order to cement support around a single hard-line candidate.

The two were seen to be vying for the same voting bloc, which could help Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and the sole reformist in the race.

Pezeshkian has the support of pro-reform parties and has been endorsed by moderates, including Rouhani and several members of his government.

The election was always thought to be a three-way race among Qalibaf, Jalili, and Pezeshkian. Several recent opinion polls in Iran show Pezeshkian pulling ahead of his conservative rivals. Pressure has been building on Qalibaf and Jalili to reach an agreement, with hard-liners warning that failing to settle on a consensus candidate could split the conservative vote.

Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali has gone on a hunger strike to protest against being left out of a prisoner exchange deal between Tehran and Stockholm, his wife Vida Mehrannia told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

Earlier this month, Sweden released former Iranian prison official Hamid Nouri in exchange for Swedish citizens Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi.

Djalali, who was detained in 2016 and subsequently sentenced to death for allegedly spying for Israel, was not part of the exchange. He has denied all charges.

Mehrannia said the Swedish government has not given Djalali’s family “convincing” explanations about why he was not included in the deal.

She added that Djalali’s hunger strike, which started on June 26, was in protest against Stockholm “leaving him behind” and “not taking any responsibility.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on June 25 that his government’s only options were to either bring Floderus and Azizi back or “drop everything” and forget the deal.

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Mehrannia said she will meet a government representative in the first week of July to discuss her husband’s case.

She said Djalali, who is the longest imprisoned dual citizen held in Iran, was sentenced to death so that Tehan could use him to “pressure” European nations to release Iranian prisoners.

The prisoner swap deal has been widely condemned by rights groups and activists, because Nouri was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.

Western governments and rights groups have long accused Iran of detaining dual citizens to use them as bargaining chips against the West.

At least eight other European citizens are currently held in Iran, including Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent sentenced to death.

The Islamic republic is also holding German-Iranian Nahid Taqavi, who was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison

Other Europeans held in Iran include French citizens Cecile Kohler and her partner, Jacques Paris, as well as a man identified only by his first name Olivier. Kohler and Paris are accused of spying, but no details have been released about Olivier's case.

An unnamed Austrian national was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in jail in Iran last year for spying, according to Vienna.

Swedish nationals Simon Kasper Brown and Stephen Kevin Gilbert, who were detained in 2021 and later convicted of drug trafficking, are serving eight and five years in prison, respectively.

Written by Kian Sharifi based on an interview by Fereshteh Ghazi of RFE/RL's Radio Farda

When Armenia announced on June 21 that it was officially recognizing Palestine as a state, it cited the "catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and the ongoing military conflict" there. But Yerevan's calculations began long before the current war in Gaza and have less to do with the conflict in the Middle East and more to do with those closer to home in the Caucasus.

Israel has long been a close ally of Armenia's foe, Azerbaijan. Israeli purchases of Azerbaijani oil fill Baku's coffers, and Israeli weapons were instrumental in Azerbaijan's ability, between 2020 and 2023, to retake the territory it had lost to Armenian forces in the 1990s.

Now, with Israel facing greater international isolation as a result of its war in Gaza, Yerevan saw the opportunity to strike a retaliatory blow.

"It was Israeli policy itself that is to blame for Armenia's adoption of a more pro-Palestinian position," said Richard Giragosian, the head of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center think tank.

"And this is due to Israel's unprecedented military support to Azerbaijan, which has only emboldened and empowered Azerbaijan's reliance on the force of arms against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh," he said, referring to the territory at the heart of the conflict between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

'The Enemy Of My Enemy'

In the perceptions of both Baku and Yerevan, the Israel-Palestine conflict has long been refracted through the lens of the wars in the Caucasus.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan and Israel quickly began to build close ties based on the principle of "the enemy of my enemy" -- in this case, Iran -- "is my friend." Baku fears Iran's potential influence over its majority Shi'ite population, while Tehran fears Azerbaijan's potential influence on the large ethnic Azeri population in northern Iran.

"Much like Israel, Azerbaijan perceives Iran as a major, even existential security threat, and the two countries' cooperation flows from this shared recognition," read a leaked 2009 diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baku.

Initially, though, the relationship was relatively discreet: The U.S. cable quoted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev comparing it to "an iceberg, nine-tenths of it is below the surface." Azerbaijan didn't even open an embassy in Israel, mindful of the response of Arab states whose support Baku sought in its struggle with Armenia.

That relationship poisoned Israel-Armenia ties. Israel consistently refused to classify the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as genocide, out of deference to its Azerbaijani partners (and in hopes of maintaining ties with Turkey). For Armenians, the move was hypocritical for a state founded following the Holocaust. In United Nations votes on Israel and Palestine, Armenia consistently voted on the Palestinian side.

But Armenia never recognized Palestine, a consequence of Yerevan's policy of not recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh, the de facto state set up by ethnic Armenians following the first Karabakh war of the 1990s, as long as negotiations with Azerbaijan over that territory continued. Armenia formally recognizing Karabakh would have been seen by the Azerbaijanis (and others) as an effective abandonment of the negotiations.

The Iceberg Surfaces

Over time, the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship began to emerge from the depths. Highlighting its long-standing and warm relations with Jews both in Azerbaijan and around the world became a staple of the Azerbaijani government's messaging.

Azerbaijan began to rely more and more on Israeli weapons: In the period between 2018 and 2022, Azerbaijan accounted for more than 9 percent of Israel's weapons exports, second in the world behind only India. Israeli weapons, in particular drones, played a critical role in Azerbaijan's 2020 victory in the Second Karabakh War.

That war accelerated the alignment of Azerbaijan with, and Armenia against, Israel. Armenia has grown closer to Iran, which has offered a security guarantee (albeit a vaguely worded one) to Armenia against a potential Azerbaijani attack.

And Armenians' anger at Israel has grown. In an International Republican Institute poll taken in December 2023, Armenians ranked their relations with Israel just ahead of those with Turkey. Yerevan's only synagogue has been attacked four times since October 2023, most recently in early June; Israeli officials have said the attacks are the result of their country's arms deals with Azerbaijan.

The war also led to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian formally acknowledging that Nagorno-Karabakh was Azerbaijani territory, thus obviating the previous principle of not recognizing controversial territories.

In some ways, Armenia's move means it is joining the mainstream: More than 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, including all of Armenia's neighbors and most other former Soviet republics.

However, a complicating factor is that the minority of countries who don't recognize Palestine are concentrated in Western Europe and North America -- precisely the countries that Armenia is trying to woo as it works to break its former dependence on Russia.

While a recognition may have caused some consternation in Western capitals before, Armenia has been given some cover by the fact that several other European countries -- Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain -- also have recently recognized Palestine as a state. Those earlier moves "minimized any subsequent Armenian diplomatic vulnerability or isolation," analyst Giragosian said.

The Azerbaijani Response

Armenia's embrace of Palestine has put Azerbaijan on its back foot, making its Middle Eastern balancing act even more difficult to sustain.

Yerevan's recognition drew rare praise from Turkey, one of the Palestinians' most prominent champions and Azerbaijan's closest ally. It also highlighted how Palestine has become another factor in the Azerbaijani-Turkish relationship. Pro-Palestinian protesters in Turkey have targeted the country office of the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR.

And following a recent meeting between the leaders of the two countries, the summary of the meeting from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan noted that he had discussed "Israel's aggression in Gaza" with Aliyev. The Azerbaijani summary of the same meeting conspicuously did not mention the Middle East.

The response from official Baku and the pro-government media to Armenia's move to recognize Palestine as a state has been muted.

"Overall, Azerbaijan got itself in quite a precarious position" of keeping up close ties with Israel while navigating the global backlash against Israel's offensive in Gaza, said Shujaat Ahmadzada, an independent analyst based in Baku.

Among ordinary Azerbaijanis, too, Israel's offensive in Gaza appears to have occasioned a shift from a generally pro-Israel position to more sympathy for Palestinians, he said.

While there is no data on the subject, "I have personally witnessed how usually pro-Israeli people in Azerbaijan have openly turned anti-Israeli over the last months," he said. "Hardly anyone supports Israel openly now."

In that sensitive environment, "I think the best mitigation strategy [the Azerbaijani authorities] could come up with is just to stay silent and keep a low profile," Ahmadzada said.

Iran's Supreme Court has overturned popular rapper Toomaj Salehi's death sentence, his lawyer said on June 22.

In April, Salehi was sentenced to death by a court in Isfahan on a new charge, "corruption on Earth," as he was serving a six-year prison sentence for his involvement in the 2022 protests that rocked Iran for months.

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"As expected, the Supreme Court avoided an irreparable judicial error," Salehi's lawyer, Amir Raisian, wrote on X. "The death sentence was overturned and, based on the appeal decision of the Supreme Court, the case will be referred to a parallel branch for reconsideration."

Salehi, 33, was initially arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of the protests that had erupted the previous month following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died while in police custody for allegedly wearing her head scarf improperly.

After spending much of his pretrial detention in solitary confinement, he was sentenced to six years in prison but released after the Supreme Court, on appeal, found "flaws in the original sentence." His case was sent back to a lower court for reexamination and possible retrial.

He was temporarily released on bail in November after spending over a year in prison, including 252 days in solitary confinement, but then was rearrested shortly after publicly talking about his alleged torture in prison in a video.

Raisian said on June 22 that the Supreme Court also annulled the previous six-year sentence because "it is in excess of legal punishment."

Salehi gained prominence for lyrics that rail against corruption, widespread poverty, executions, and the killing of protesters in Iran.

His songs also point to a widening gap between ordinary Iranians and the country's leadership, accusing the authorities of "suffocating" the people without regard for their well-being.

Russian firms shipped tens of thousands of tons of wheat and peas out of occupied parts of Ukraine in 2023 to EU member Spain, NATO member Turkey, and Azerbaijan, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Schemes, and its partners have found.

Similar amounts of barley and corn reached Moscow allies Iran and Syria, which have an established track record of buying Ukrainian grain appropriated by Russia, Schemes, the Ukrainian hacker group KibOrg, the Belarusian Investigative Center, and Vyortska, an independent Russian-language media outlet, determined in an investigation based on official Russian documents and other sources.

At least 6.4 million tons of wheat alone were harvested from Russian-occupied Crimea and Russian-held parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhya regions in 2023, according to satellite estimates by NASA’s Harvest program, which tracks food-security threats. SeaKrime, a nongovernmental Ukrainian project that tracks Russia’s illegal grain shipments from Ukraine, has reported that 2 million tons of that harvest were shipped abroad from Crimea’s ports.

Such sales undermine Ukraine’s war-battered economy and provide Russia with revenue to finance the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year.

For 2023, Schemes and its partners documented Russian sales of nearly 35,000 tons of wheat, barley, corn, and peas from the Kherson region and Crimea at discounted customs rates.

Hacked documents from Kherson’s occupation administrators, leaked Russian customs data, and information from the online trade database Import Genius confirmed the role of at least four Russian companies – Agro-Fregat, Pallada, Sim-Trans Group, and TD Fregat – in these transactions.

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One of these companies, Pallada, has a remote connection to the general contractor for construction of a massive residential complex on Russia’s Black Sea coast known as “Putin’s palace.”

Though Russian customs and occupation-administration documents show that the products came from the Kherson region and Crimea, rather than from Russia, whether the buyers ever questioned the origins of the products they were purchasing is unclear. None agreed to discuss the matter.

How It Works

The Kherson region, part of Ukraine’s breadbasket, boasted a record harvest of 3.1 million tons of grain in 2021 – a bounty that attracted Russian firms once Russian forces occupied parts of the southern region in 2022.

Satellite data in 2022 showed trucks traveling from Kherson and the neighboring Zaporizhzhya region, also partially Russian-occupied, to Crimea for shipment abroad.

In 2023, Russian companies shipped an estimated 6.2 million euros ($6.7 million) worth of agricultural products from the Kherson region at discounted Russian customs rates or duty-free, according to Russian customs data and contracts from the occupation administration.

Volodymyr Saldo, an ex-mayor of the city of Kherson who is the top occupation official in the Russian-held part of the region, has the power to approve or reject the decisions of a commission that assigns these discounts.
In 2023, about a dozen Russian companies applied for the special rates.

The commission’s decisions enabled Schemes and its partners to trace Russian companies’ illegal sales of Kherson’s agricultural products abroad.

European Union

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union has banned over 91.2 million euros ($97.6 million) worth of Russian imports but has avoided barring Russian-EU trade in food and health products “in order not to harm the Russian population,” an EU explainer states.

That spells opportunity for Russia’s Agro-Fregat, a wholesale agricultural exporter, whose train cars RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service has photographed in Crimea. In a 2022 article, Oleksiy Makeyev, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry special envoy on sanctions, denounced Agro-Fregat, based in southwestern Russia’s Rostov region, and seven other Russian firms for exporting “stolen grain” from Ukraine.

Peas also make up that portfolio. Russian export data shows that, in September 2023, Agro-Fregat sent, as part of a 4,500-ton shipment to Spain, nearly 2,674 tons of peas from the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Agro-Fregat has been receiving Russian quality certifications for Crimean peas since 2022, according to Russia’s Federal Accreditation Service.

In 2022-23, Spain ranked as the second-largest importer of peas exported by Russia after Turkey, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

A cargo manifest obtained by SeaKrime, a section of the Myrotvorets group, identified Agro-Fregat’s Spanish customer as Cereales Y Harinas Garsan S.L., a company in Spain’s southeastern city of Lorca that says it distributes foodstuffs to 12 countries.

Cereales Y Harinas Garsan did not respond to a request for comment. In a May 25 phone call with Schemes, Agro-Fregat CEO Dmitry Lapkin denied any knowledge of shipments from the Kherson region.

Turkey, Too

But Agro-Fregat routinely exports from the Kherson region: In June and July 2023, it requested permission from the commission to export 25,000 tons of wheat and meslin, a mixture of cereals and legumes, at discounted rates. The buyer, according to occupation administration documents, was the Turkish company Velar Tarim Sanayi ve Tic. A.S (Velar), headquartered in the city of Adana.

Turkey, which exports military goods to Ukraine, ranked in 2022-23 as the main importer of grain exported by Russia, according to agribusiness consultants APK-Inform.

At least 9,554 tons of the wheat and meslin for Velar, according to a Russian government itinerary confirmed by tracking by MarineTraffic, a shipping intelligence site, traveled on August 7, 2023, from Crimea’s Sevastopol Bay to Russia’s Port Kavkaz on the Kerch Strait on board the Alfa M, and thence, two days later, on to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Mersin on board the St. Olga.

Velar did not respond to questions about this shipment.

Azerbaijan

Turkey’s South Caucasus ally Azerbaijan, which has close ties with Moscow, has described itself as “a loyal and dear friend to Ukraine.” It also is a regular customer for Russian-expropriated wheat from Ukraine.

Wheat imports classified as Russian, in fact, narrowly outranked petroleum products in 2022 as Azerbaijan’s main Russian import, valued at $294 million, according to the trade data site OEC.

The Moscow-based Sim-Trans Group describes itself as one of the top three wheat exporters to Azerbaijan. In 2023, it exported the ruble equivalent of just under $410,000 worth of grain, according to an official Russian foreign trade database, to the Baku-registered company Diba.

The origin of all these wheat shipments is unclear. But in 2023, Sim-Trans Group received permission from the commission to send Diba up to 2,200 tons of grain from Kherson, occupation-administration documents show.

Sim-Trans Group did not answer phone calls about this shipment. Diba did not respond to requests for comment.

Iran And Syria

One Russian company, Pallada, LLC, which sent at least 15,400 tons of Kherson barley under a discounted Russian customs rate in 2023 to Iran’s Persian Gulf port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, has a distant connection to sanctioned Croatian businessman Kresimir Filipovic, who Russian media have reported was involved in the construction of a luxury estate in Gelendzhik on Russia’s Black Sea coast that was allegedly built for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Pallada was registered as a grain wholesaler in the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don a few weeks before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Its minority owner is Megapolis-Invest, a Russian corporate management firm that previously controlled a company, Waveform Investments, formerly majority owned by Filipovic, according to the business database KonturFocus.

The independent media outlet Proyekt has identified a Filipovic-owned business, Velesstroi, as the general contractor for construction of “Putin’s palace.”

The extent of Filipovic’s involvement in Pallada, if any, is unclear.

The firm’s majority owner, according to the Russian business registry SBIS, is Sergei Kuznetsov, a 47-year-old Muscovite.

Kuznetsov did not respond to Vyorstka’s May 31 question via Telegram about whether he is Pallada’s nominal owner in favor of Megapolis-Invest and Filipovic.

Another Russian exporter, the Moscow-based TD Fregat LLC, also declined to comment. In May 2023, it received a customs-duty discount on 3,000 tons of Kherson corn as part of an 8,000-ton export from Crimea to the Syrian port of Latakia.

TD Fregat, which says it “specializes in complex operations in the grain industry,” did not respond to a request for elaboration.

Written by Elizabeth Owen

Supporters of Iranian reformist presidential candidate Masud Pezeshkian have praised his adviser Mohammad Fazeli for storming off the set of a live televised discussion program after a fiery exchange with a hard-line pundit.

Iran's state-run broadcaster IRIB has been holding televised roundtables as part of its election programming where candidates appear on set accompanied by two advisers to face a three-person panel of experts picked by the IRIB.

Fazeli appeared in the studio on June 19 as one of Pezeshkian’s two advisers on cultural issues, where he found himself on the receiving end of stinging remarks by Shahab Esfandiari, a panelist and the head of IRIB University.

Iranian Adviser Causes Scene On State TV

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In 2021, Fazeli was among a slew of professors and lecturers who were forced out of universities during the early months of the late President Ebrahim Raisi's tenure in office.

Between 2013 and 2017, during the first term of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, Fazeli served as a deputy energy minister and later served as an adviser to the ministry.

Esfandiari, who is said to be close to hard-line candidate Saeed Jalili, accused Fazeli of "violating" his contract with the prestigious Shahid Beheshti University when he took positions in the government.

He also charged that Fazeli had "made a scene in the media" after being fired from the university and accused him of "damaging the image of higher education."

Fazeli insisted he had been cleared by the university to work in the government and maintained that Esfandiari was "lying."

The exchange quickly spiraled, with Esfandiari cutting in as Fazeli tried to speak. At one point, Pezeshkian jumped in, telling Esfandiari to "let him [Fazeli] speak."

Having lost control of the situation, the moderator, Jafar Khosravi, cut off Esfandiari and Fazeli's microphones. Fazeli proceeded to leave his seat, unhook his microphone, and throw it down before walking off the set.

A video later emerged showing a large group of Pezeshkian's supporters who had gathered in a conference hall at Tehran's Milad Tower to watch a livestream of the debate break into applause when Fazeli stormed off.

On social media, supporters of Pezeshkian criticized the state broadcaster for not allowing Fazeli to respond to Esfandiari's comments and accused the hard-line panelist of settling personal scores on live television.

Conservatives, however, argued that the incident provided a glimpse into what a Pezeshkian administration would look like.

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

Millions of ordinary Iranians, fed up with a flailing economy and the lack of social and political freedoms, are expected to stay at home when the country holds a presidential election on June 28.

A low turnout, which experts say is likely, would underscore the challenge to the legitimacy of Iran’s ruling clerical establishment amid rising anti-government sentiment.

Among those who will boycott the upcoming election is Mojgan Ilanlou, a documentary filmmaker and women’s rights activist based in Tehran.

The outspoken Ilanlou was arrested and jailed for her involvement in the monthslong nationwide antiestablishment protests that rocked the Islamic republic in 2022. She was later released under an amnesty.

Now, she says she will stay away from the polls as a form of peaceful civil protest against the authorities, who have cracked down on protesters with lethal force.

“I have no representative in this election to vote for…so maybe when they realize they need my vote and that I don’t easily sell my vote, something might change,” Ilanlou told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

Elections in the Islamic republic are tightly controlled with candidates being preselected by an unelected body dominated by hard-liners.

SEE ALSO:

Iran's 'Highly Engineered' Race For Presidency Dominated By Hard-Liners

The six candidates cleared to run in the upcoming election are all men, most are hard-liners, and some have ties to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of Iran’s armed forces.

“Not only me but, I believe, a large group of people have reached the understanding that no change comes from the ballot box in Iran,” Ilanlou said.

She laughed off assertions that people boycotting the election were seeking to topple the clerical regime, arguing that the authorities “are ruling in such a way that they are taking care of it themselves.”

Women's Rights Not A Priority

Unprecedented antiestablishment protests erupted in Iran following the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly wearing her mandatory hijab, or head scarf, improperly.

Ilanlou was among the first women to publicly ditch her hijab during the protests. Women, some of whom cut their hair and burned their head scarves in public, were at the forefront of the demonstrations.

SEE ALSO:

'This Revolution Is Still Alive': A Growing Number Of Iranian Women Defy The Hijab Law After Months Of Protests

The 53-year-old was detained by security forces and jailed for four months for posting pictures of herself on social media without the hijab.

During previous elections, Ilanlou said candidates would often talk about women’s rights and make pledges on the campaign trail that they could not keep. But that is not the case this year.

“This time around, the candidates don’t even talk about women at all…it is as though there is no such thing as women, women’s demands, or equality,” Ilanlou said. “They act like they don’t need women’s votes. They’ll see the consequence at the ballot box.”

She said that the lone reformist, Masud Pezeshkian, is the only candidate so far to broach the subject of the notorious morality police, which enforces the strict Islamic dress code. But, she added, Pezeshkian had not actually said anything to excite voters.

“He says he’s opposed to the morality police. So what? We’re opposed to it, too.” Ilanlou said. “Fix the crisis, if you can.”

Written by Kian Sharifi based on an interview by Kianush Farid of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

A devastating fire at the private Qaem hospital in Rasht, northern Iran, has resulted in the deaths of nine people, Iranian news agencies reported, including some patients in intensive care.

Mohammad Taghi Ashoubi, head of Gilan University of Medical Sciences, confirmed that the death toll had risen to nine following the death of another victim from the fire, which started in the early morning hours at the 250-bed facility on June 18.

At the time of the blaze, approximately 140 patients were in the facility, with 120 sustaining injuries, officials said.

Rasht fire department officials said it took three hours to bring the fire under control.

"By the time we arrived, the basement and the intensive-care rooms were on fire. The fire originated in the hospital's utility room," said Shahram Momeni, head of the fire brigade.

Qaem hospital, established in 2013 and affiliated with the Gilan University of Medical Sciences, houses over 200 beds and includes facilities catering to both local and medical tourists. These include specialized and super-specialized departments such as dialysis, chemotherapy, emergency services, angiography, and maternity and pediatric care.

The fire highlights ongoing safety concerns in Iranian health-care facilities as it follows a tragic fire in November 2023 that killed 36 people at the First Step to Freedom addiction treatment center in Langarud, Gilan Province.

Other notable fires at Tehran medical facilities include a large blaze at the Gandhi Hospital and the deadly explosion at Sina At'har medical diagnostic clinic in July 2020, which claimed 19 lives and injured 14 others.

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

The Islamic Revolutionary Court of Karaj has sentenced Amirhossein Kouhkan, a defense lawyer for the family of Mohammad Mehdi Karami, who was executed during protests over the death of Mahsa Amini that rocked Iran in 2022, to six years in prison.

Kouhkan faced several charges, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), including "assembly and collusion" and "propaganda against the regime."

Kouhkan's arrest comes after he was summoned by the Karaj intelligence department last year. He was detained at the time and held until he was granted a conditional release in December.

The charges also follow the arrest of Mashallah Karami, Mohammad Mehdi Karami's father, highlighting a pressure campaign rights groups say the government is using against those connected to protest movements in Iran.

Mohammad Mehdi Karami was one of nine individuals executed by the Islamic republic in relation to the protests of 2022, which saw widespread unrest over government policies that protesters said curbed basic human rights and intruded too deeply into the lives of most Iranians.

His execution in January 2023, which was tied to the alleged murder of a Basij militia member during the nationwide upheaval, drew international condemnation.

The cases of Kouhkan and Karami underscore the concern among Iranian authorities of the possibility of a new wave of unrest.

Following the death of Amini in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets nationwide to protest. The 22-year-old died under mysterious circumstances while she was in police custody for an alleged head-scarf violation.

A clampdown by security forces against protesters has resulted in the deaths of approximately 600 demonstrators, as reported by human rights groups, and thousands of arrests.

The Iranian judiciary has also executed several protesters, further inflaming public outcry against the regime's harsh tactics.

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

Canada has listed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity and advised any Canadians in Iran to leave the country.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement on June 19 at a news conference in Ottawa, saying the decision to declare the IRGC as a terrorist organization is based on "very strong and convincing evidence."

LeBlanc told reporters that Canada "uses all possible means to fight the terrorist acts of the IRGC."

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly noted at the same news conference that Ottawa broke off diplomatic ties with Tehran several years ago. She urged Canadians against travel to Iran and said those in the country now should "come back home."

The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group has long been sought by Iranian expats and relatives of those killed on a flight brought down in January 2020 by Iranian forces shortly after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew, about half of them Canadians.

The Association of Families of Ukrainian Flight PS752 said in a statement on June 19 that it was grateful to the government for making the designation and to "all political parties, activists, and individuals who contributed to this achievement."

The statement added that that the association is "also grateful to the brave people of Iran who have stood up against this oppressive organization and have continuously supported the families of the victims."

The association also said it continues to insist on its other demands, including pursuing the case of the downed flight in the International Court of Justice and before other international courts.

SEE ALSO:

A Year After Iran Downed Ukrainian Airliner, Families Still Seeking Justice

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government had been reluctant to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization over concern that listing it as such would have unintended consequences that could inadvertently impact Iranians in Canada opposed to the regime.

Trudeau signaled the move earlier this year at a memorial service for the victims of the downed plane, saying that his government was looking for ways to add the IRGC to the list of terrorist organizations.

"We know there is more to do to hold the regime to account and we will continue our work, including continuing to look for ways to responsibly list the IRGC as a terrorist organization," Trudeau said on January 8.

Once a group is placed on Canada's terrorism list, police can charge anyone who financially or materially supports the group and banks can freeze assets.

Ottawa has previously listed the Quds Force, a branch of the IRGC, as a terrorist entity, and in 2022 permanently denied entry to more than 10,000 Iranian officials, including members of the IRGC.

Ottawa severed diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2012.

With reporting by AFP

International human rights groups and activists have strongly condemned a prisoner exchange between Sweden and Iran that involved Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official convicted in the Nordic country of crimes against humanity.

Nouri, who was exchanged on June 15 for Swedish nationals Johan Floderus and Saeid Azizi, returned to Iran using his alias "Hamid Abbasi," a name linked to the executions of political prisoners in 1988.

Upon his arrival in Tehran, Nouri was met with a mixed reception, a reflection on his controversial past and the contentious nature of the swap.

Floderus is a Swedish EU diplomat held in captivity for two years in Iran on espionage charges that he, the EU, and Stockholm said were fabricated. Azizi was arrested in Iran last November on what Sweden has called "wrongful grounds."

"The Swedish government has thrown dirt into the face of justice in the world by handing over a 'criminal' to the Islamic republic," said Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, noting Nouri's conviction for gross violations of international humanitarian laws.

"This disgrace and scandal will never be forgotten," Ebadi added.

Swedish prosecutors originally detained Nouri in 2019, basing their case on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows for the prosecution of severe crimes irrespective of location.

After a detailed and lengthy trial, Nouri was sentenced in May 2022 to life imprisonment for his role in the massacre of political prisoners during the summer of 1988.

Iran has arrested dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years on espionage charges that they and their governments say are groundless. Critics say Tehran uses such arbitrary detentions as part of hostage diplomacy to extract concessions from Western countries, which Tehran denies.

"The Islamic republic will take more innocent foreign and dual nationals hostage, repress people at home, and terrorize those abroad," actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi said.

"The international community needs a new approach. One that deters, not appeases the regime."

Esmat Vatanparast, who lost 11 members of her extended family during the 1988 mass executions -- including her two daughters and three brothers -- told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that "my heart broke today, tears came to my eyes, but I remain hopeful for the people of Iran" after hearing of the exchange.

SEE ALSO:

'A Symbol Of Murder Gone': Families Of Victims Of Mass Executions Express Relief After Iranian President's Death

The exchange was also criticized for failing to include Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish researcher who has been imprisoned in Iran since 2016.

Vida Mehrannia, Djalali's wife, expressed her dismay, announcing plans to protest in front of the Swedish Foreign Ministry against the exchange, which she labeled "shameful."

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

Iran called upon the Group of Seven (G7) on June 16 to distance itself from "destructive policies of the past," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said, referring to a G7 statement condemning Iran's recent nuclear program escalation. On June 14, the G7 warned Iran against advancing its nuclear enrichment program and said it would be ready to enforce new measures if Tehran were to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia. "Any attempt to link the war in Ukraine to the bilateral cooperation between Iran and Russia is an act with only biased political goals," Kanaani said.

A former Iranian prison official who was sentenced to life in a Swedish prison for crimes committed during the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 was released by Sweden, officials said, in a prisoner swap that also saw Tehran release an EU diplomat.

A third man, a dual Iranian-Swedish citizen, was also released as part of the June 15 deal, which was hailed as a breakthrough in long-strained relations between Tehran and Stockholm.

Hamid Nouri was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019 and was charged with the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at Iran's notorious Gohardasht prison. The killings targeted members of a political-militant organization known as the MKO that advocated the overthrow of Iran's clerical regime.

Sweden's prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, meanwhile, said in a video posted to social media that Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi were en route to Sweden "and will soon be reunited with their families."

All three returned to their countries on June 15.

SEE ALSO:

Iran's Top Presidential Candidate Called Out After Talking Up Free-Speech Credentials

The exact conditions or circumstances of the swap were not immediately clear, although it appeared to have been negotiated with the help of the Gulf state of Oman, according to a statement published by the Oman state news agency.

Floderus, a Swedish national, had been visiting Iran in the spring of 2022 on a private trip. He was detained at Tehran airport on April 17, 2022, as he prepared to leave the country. He was later accused by Iranian prosecutors of espionage.

He had been employed as a diplomat with the EU's External Action Service, the bloc's foreign policy arm.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell hailed the release of Floderus and Azizi, adding that the bloc "will continue to work" to secure the release of other EU citizens "arbitrarily detained in Iran."

Azizi, a dual Swedish-Iranian national, was taken into custody on November 12, 2023, at his residence in Tehran shortly after arriving from Sweden. He was convicted of "colluding to act against national security" and sentenced to five years in prison.

Azizi’s lawyer, Reza Shefakhah, wrote on X that neither he nor his client's family had been made aware of the prisoner exchange.

SEE ALSO:

'A Symbol Of Murder Gone': Families Of Victims Of Mass Executions Express Relief After Iranian President's Death

At least three other Swedish citizens are currently held in Iran.

Amnesty International welcomed the release of Floderus and Azizi but questioned why Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish doctor and academic who is sentenced to death in Iran, was not among the prisoners released.

"The circumstances confirm our earlier fears that Iran is holding Swedish citizens hostage to use in a prisoner swap," the rights group said in a statement posted to X.

Djalali was detained in 2016 and subsequently sentenced to death for allegedly spying for Israel -- a charge that his family denies.

Simon Kasper Brown and Stephen Kevin Gilbert, who were detained in 2021 and later convicted of drug trafficking, receiving eight and five years in prison, respectively.

Other Europeans held in Iran include French citizens Cecile Kohler and her partner, Jacques Paris, as well as a man identified only by his first name Olivier. Kohler and Paris are accused of spying, but no details have been released about Olivier's case.

The Islamic republic is also holding German-Iranian Nahid Taqavi, who was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison, and Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent sentenced to death.

An unnamed Austrian national was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in jail in Iran last year for spying, according to Vienna.

With reporting by AFP

The UN nuclear watchdog said Iran has started up new cascades of advanced centrifuges and planned to install others in the coming weeks. The June 14 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was met with strong criticism by the United States and other Western nations. "We remain committed to a diplomatic solution preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement cosigned by Germany and Britain. The IAEA said its inspectors verified that Iran had begun feeding uranium into three cascades of advanced centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility. Its report, however, did not include any suggestion Iran planned to go to higher enrichment levels.

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

Pakistan and Iran are continuing to deport thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants each week, despite warnings from rights groups and aid organizations.

The Taliban government said over 400,000 Afghans have been expelled from the two neighboring countries since the start of the year.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban official, said around 75 percent of the returnees were expelled from Pakistan.

Over 1 million Afghans have been deported from Pakistan and Iran during the past year.

Why It's Important: Rights groups and aid organizations have warned that the mass deportation drives will worsen the already devastating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the world’s largest.

The Taliban government, which remains unrecognized and sanctioned by the international community, appears unable to absorb the returning refugees or address the humanitarian needs of Afghans.

Aid agencies operating in Afghanistan have called for more international funding to address the needs of the returnees, who lack shelter, warm clothes, and food. Many of the returnees are homeless.

"There is no work and food is expensive," Kamran, an Afghan who was recently deported from Pakistan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. He said he is living in a tent because he cannot afford to rent a house.

"After returning from Iran, I have been living in Kabul for about two to three months,” said Fazaluddin, an Afghan who was recently expelled from Iran. “Life is very difficult here. There were many problems in Iran, but at least I could get a bite to eat."

What's Next: Pakistan and Iran, both of which are not signatories to UN conventions on refugees, appear likely to continue their deportation drives.

In March, Pakistan announced efforts to expand and expedite its plans to deport Afghans from April 15.

Iran, meanwhile, has repeatedly vowed to expel all undocumented Afghans from the country.

What To Keep An Eye On

Child labor is rising under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, where a humanitarian and economic crisis as well as the Taliban restrictions on female employment have led to more children working.

Around 19 percent of children in Afghanistan are working, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on June 12.

Among them is 11-year-old Ahmad, whose mother lost her job as a state employee after the Taliban takeover.

"I’m the only breadwinner after my father died," Ahmad, who works for up to eight hours each day after attending school, told Radio Azadi.

"If parents have jobs, they will never push their children into child labor," said Najibullah Zadran Babrakzai, an Afghan child rights activist.

Why It's Important: The Taliban’s severe restrictions on women, as well as mass unemployment and rising poverty, have forced children as well as the elderly to work to feed their families.

The need to work is likely to deprive thousands of Afghan children from education as many families try to stave off starvation.

That's all from me for now.

Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

An unnamed person was arrested on June 13 in Iran’s central city of Qom for allegedly insulting the late President Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter accident last month. The police accused the individual of “having ties” to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and of “collaborating” with foreign-based opposition media. No evidence was provided for the claims. Iranian authorities often accuse critics of working with foreign intelligence agencies and opposition outlets. To read the full story in Persian by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, click here.

Fatemeh Sepehri, a prominent critic of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been sentenced to an additional 18 1/2 years in prison for "supporting Israel," a thinly veiled reference to her condemnation of an October 7 attack by Hamas -- designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU -- on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.

Asghar Sepehri, the dissident's brother, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mashhad convicted Fatemeh Sepehri on multiple counts: seven years for supporting Israel, seven years for conspiring against internal security, three years for insulting the supreme leader, and one year and six months for propaganda activities against the regime.

He said that with the new sentences, Fatemeh Sepehri, who suffers from a heart ailment, now faces a cumulative punishment of 37 1/2 years.

Sepehri was originally arrested in September 2022 as protests erupted across the country over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was taken into custody by the morality police for allegedly violating the country's hijab law and died while in detention.

In an exclusive interview with Radio Farda, Asghar Sepehri denounced the new charges and sentences against his sister as baseless, arguing that her imprisonment invalidated the claims of conspiracy and assembly.

He further noted that the accusation of insulting Khamenei lacks substance, given that her communications are heavily monitored, restricting even basic contact with family.

The crackdown on the Sepehri family extends beyond Fatemeh, as her brothers Mohammad-Hossein and Hossein Sepehri also received prison sentences on similar charges.

Mohammad-Hossein was handed eight years for conspiracy, assembly, and insulting the supreme leader, while Hossein faces a total of two years and 11 months for related offenses.

The Sepehri siblings' previous attorney, Khosrow Alikordi, has also been imprisoned, leading to the appointment of Javad Alikordi as their new legal representative.

However, the court has refused to recognize him, insisting that only attorneys approved by the judiciary are eligible to defend such cases, a condition the Sepehri family has not accepted.

Concerns about Fatemeh Sepehri's health were highlighted by her brother, who told Radio Farda that she was not physically capable of enduring further imprisonment due to multiple health issues.

He called on the authorities to immediately release her.

Fatemeh Sepehri is one of 14 activists in Iran who have publicly called for Khamenei to step down. She has been arrested and interrogated several times in recent years.

Sepehri and the other activists have also called for a new political system within the framework of a new constitution that would secure dignity and equal rights for women.

Criticism of Khamenei, who has the final say on almost every decision in the country, is considered a red line in Iran, and his critics often land in prison, where political prisoners are routinely held in solitary confinement and subjected to various forms of torture.

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

Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani has been sentenced to six years in prison by the country's Islamic Revolutionary Court, her attorney said.

Mohammad Moqimi told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that Farghadani received five years for "insulting sacred beliefs" and an additional year for "propaganda" against the Islamic republic for her activism.

The sentences were officially communicated to the artist on June 10 following her conviction by Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, Moqimi said.

He highlighted that the court imposed the harshest penalties available under the charges, citing the number of infractions she was alleged to have committed.

It isn't Farghadani's first encounter with the Iranian justice system.

Last year, she was taken into custody after visiting the Evin prosecutor's office and was detained by security forces.

She has already served 18 months for charges including "assembly and collusion," "propaganda activities against the state," and "insulting the leadership and the president."

Farghadani's latest arrest occurred on April 14, after which Moqimi reported that she was severely beaten, leaving an interrogation with visible injuries on her face.

Refusing to accept the bail set for her detention, which she said was "arbitrary," Farghadani was transferred to Qarchak prison near Tehran, known for its harsh conditions.

An art graduate from Alzahra University, Farghadani was recognized internationally when the Cartoonists Rights Network International awarded her its Courage In Cartooning Award in August 2015.

The sentence is part of a broad campaign of suppression in response to the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022, during which many artists and popular cultural activists have been similarly targeted.

Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, concluded in a report in March that the actions of the Iranian authorities since the 2022 protests pointed to "the possible commission of international crimes, notably the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual violence, and persecution."

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