A Russian court has sentenced a St Petersburg artist to seven years in prison in a closely watched trial that has highlighted the severe punishments meted out to ordinary Russians for even small acts of civil protest against the invasion of Ukraine.

Aleksandra “Sasha” Skochilenko, an artist, musician and activist, was found guilty on Thursday of “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army” in March 2022. The artist admitted replacing five price tags in a local supermarket with pieces of paper urging shoppers to stop the war and resist propaganda on television.

Finland to close Russia border points amid heavy migration

Finnish authorities have reported a sharp rise in the number of undocumented asylum-seekers arriving via Russia, and alleged that Russian authorities are facilitating the movement of migrants to the border region.

Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo on Thursday said that four of the country’s nine crossing points on its long eastern border with Russia will be closed starting Saturday in an attempt to stem the flow of asylum seekers.

“The government has today decided that Finland will close some eastern border crossing points,” Orpo told a press conference.

The move comes in response to a sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers from countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, who Finnish authorities are being purposely ushered towards the border by Russia.

Iran releases prize-winning rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh

Iranian authorities on Wednesday released the prize-winning rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh after she spent more than two weeks in prison, her husband said.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, 60, was arrested at the funeral on October 29 in Tehran of Armita Garawand, 17, who activists say was fatally beaten by the Tehran morality police.

Sotoudeh, who has spent much of the past decade in and out of prison serving a myriad of sentences in cases linked to her activism, was after her arrest moved to Qarchak women’s prison outside Tehran and subsequently to Evin prison in the capital.

“Nasrin was released from prison a few hours ago after posting bail,” her husband Reza Khandan wrote on X, formerly Twitter, posting a picture with his wife who was defiantly not wearing the headscarf obligatory for women in the Islamic republic.

Rightist arrested after car rams fence outside Israeli Embassy

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

November 16, 2023 at 13:25 JST

A man with ties to a rightist group was arrested on Nov. 16 for ramming a car into a metal fence on the street outside the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.

The incident, which occurred around 11 a.m., followed recent rallies staged by protesters around Japan demanding an end to the bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Israel’s war against Hamas.

Elon Musk agrees with antisemitic X post that claims Jews ‘push hatred’ against White people

Agreeing with an antisemitic post on his social media platform X, Elon Musk endorsed the claim that Jewish communities push “hatred against Whites.”

An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.

In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”