Politics
Iran detains Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi
Iranian security forces on Friday detained the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi along with at least eight other activists in an arrest condemned as “brutal” by the Norwegian Nobel committee.
Mohammadi, who was granted temporary leave from prison in December 2024, was detained along with eight other activists at the ceremony for lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who was found dead in his office last week, her foundation wrote on X.
Those arrested at the ceremony in the eastern city of Mashhad included Mohammadi’s fellow prominent activist Sepideh Gholian, who had previously been jailed alongside her in Tehran’s Evin prison.
“These individuals were present solely to pay their respects and express solidarity at a memorial ceremony,” her foundation said, adding the arrests “constitute a blatant and serious violation of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights”.
“Narges was beaten on the legs and she was held by her hair and dragged down,” one of her brothers, Hamid Mohammadi, told AFP in Oslo where he lives.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was “deeply concerned by today’s brutal arrest” of Mohammadi, calling on Iran to “immediately” clarify her whereabouts.
The arrest came two days after the ceremony in Oslo for the 2025 prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who is an ally of Tehran.
The Nobel committee said it “notes” the timing “given the close collaboration between the regimes in Iran and Venezuela”.
Within Iran, the Mehr news agency cited the Mashhad governor Hassan Hosseini as saying the individuals were arrested at the ceremony after “chanting slogans deemed contrary to public norms” but did not name them.
Slogans at funeral
Alikordi, 45, was a lawyer who had defended clients in sensitive cases, including people arrested in a crackdown on nationwide protests that erupted in 2022.
His body was found on December 5, with rights groups calling for an investigation into his death, which Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said “had very serious suspicion of a state murder”.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) posted footage of Mohammadi, who was not wearing the headscarf women are obliged to wear in public in the Islamic republic, attending the ceremony with a crowd of other supporters of Alikordi.
It said they shouted slogans including “Long live Iran,” “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation” and “Death to the dictator” at the ceremony which, in line with Islamic tradition, marked seven days since Alikordi’s death.
Other footage broadcast by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed Mohammadi climbing on top of a vehicle with a microphone and encouraging people to chant slogans.
“When peaceful citizens cannot mourn without being beaten and dragged away, it reveals a government terrified of truth and accountability. It also reveals the extraordinary bravery of Iranians who refuse to surrender their dignity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran.
Years behind bars
Mohammadi, 53, who was last arrested in November 2021, has spent much of the past decade behind bars.
Her two twin children received the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf in 2023, and she has now not seen them for 11 years. Her temporary release in December 2024 was allowed on health grounds after problems related to her lungs and other issues.
“In prison, she had lots of complications. Her lungs, her heart, she has had some operations,” said Hamid Mohammadi.
“I’m not worried that she is arrested. She’s been arrested a lot of times, but what worries me most is that they will put a lot of pressure on her physical and psychological condition. And it might lead to again experiencing those complications,” he added.
Mohammadi has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, saying in a 19th birthday message to her twins last month that “they (the authorities) themselves live each day in fear of the fall that will inevitably come at the hands of the people of Iran”.
In yet another incident of hate crime against religious minorities in India, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar removed the hijab (veil) of a newly recruited Muslim doctor during an official event on Monday, drawing widespread criticism worldwide.
The shameful incident took place at “Samvad,” the CM’s secretariat, where appointment letters were being handed over to newly recruited doctors, The Indian Express reported.
When the hijab-clad woman went to collect her job letter, the CM, 75, looked at her and asked: “What is this?”
Then, he bent a little and pulled her hijab down.
Meanwhile, the flustered appointee was hastily pulled aside by an official standing near the stage.
The shocking incident triggered a wave of anguish among minorities in the country and drew strong criticism from the opposition parties, especially the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Reacting to the video, the Congress accused Kumar of inappropriate conduct towards the woman official, calling it a “vile act”.
In a post on X, the party said, “This is Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Look at his shamelessness—a female doctor had come to collect her appointment letter, and Nitish Kumar pulled off her hijab. A man occupying the highest position in Bihar is openly indulging in such a vile act.”
The RJD questioned Kumar’s mental health.
“What has happened to Nitish ji? His mental state has now reached a completely pitiable condition,” the party said in a post on X.
In India, hate crimes against religious minorities have alarmingly increased during the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Last month, a US report recommended designating India as a country of “special concern” due to religious prejudice and serious violations of religious freedom.
US Commission on International Religious Freedom, in its report, exposed religious discrimination in India and extremist policies of the RSS and the BJP’s Hindutva agenda.
The report revealed that Modi and the BJP had implemented discriminatory policies against minorities in line with the Hindutva ideology.
It added that the BJP, as the political wing of the RSS, promotes Hindu nationalism.
The RSS has been involved for decades in violent acts against minorities, particularly Muslims and Sikhs.
- Private firms may import, process uranium under new bill.
- Foreign firms in joint ventures may apply for licence.
- New bill requires approval from both houses of parliament.
NEW DELHI: India on Monday set in motion steps to end decades of state control over nuclear power, by introducing a bill in parliament that would allow private firms to build and operate plants as the government seeks to make atomic energy central to its clean energy push.
Foreign companies in a joint venture with Indian companies could apply for a licence if selected to do so by the government.
India’s nuclear sector has been tightly guarded since its first reactor went online in 1969, shaped by Cold War politics and fuel-technology restrictions after its 1974 nuclear test.
State-run Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) owns and operates India’s current fleet of nuclear power plants but Reuters reported last year that India was looking to invite domestic private firms such as Tata Power, Adani Power and Reliance Industries to invest about $26 billion in the sector.
The new bill, which must be approved by the lower and upper houses of parliament to become law, would allow any “person expressly permitted by the central government” to apply for a licence to enter the nuclear sector, a major shift from decades when only state-run companies could operate reactors.
India plans to expand nuclear power capacity to 100 gigawatts (GW) over the next two decades, more than 12 times the current 8.2 GW.
The new bill, named the Sustainable Harnessing of Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, 2025, drops a rule that lets operators sue suppliers for equipment defects, a provision foreign suppliers have long opposed. Foreign suppliers include General Electric Co, Westinghouse Electric Co and France’s EDF.
The bill doubles operator liability for large reactors to 30 billion rupees ($330.75 million), retains the overall compensation cap at previous levels and proposes a nuclear liability fund to cover accident claims in line with global norms.
Private firms will be allowed to import and process uranium, according to the bill. The government has kept strategic activities such as uranium mining, nuclear fuel enrichment and fuel reprocessing under government control, and all operators would require licences.
- Four people charged with conspiracy, reads complaint.
- Group also planned to target ice agents, vehicles, says official.
- Says plot included planting explosives at 5 sites on New Year’s Eve.
WASHINGTON: The FBI has foiled a bomb plot targeting multiple targets, including immigration agents and vehicles, in Los Angeles and Orange County, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Monday.
“The Turtle Island Liberation Front—a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group—was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles,” Bondi said in a statement.
Four people have been charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
The bombing plot called for planting explosive devices at five locations targeting two US companies at midnight on New Year’s Eve in the Los Angeles area, it said.
The four defendants named in the complaint are Audrey Illeene Carroll, Zachary Aaron Page, Dante Gaffield, and Tina Lai.
According to a sworn statement in support of the complaint, Carroll in November presented an eight-page handwritten document to a paid confidential source titled “Operation Midnight Sun” which described a bomb plot.
Carroll and Page later allegedly recruited the other two defendants to help carry out the plan, which included them “acquiring bomb-making materials and traveling to a remote location in the Mojave Desert to construct and detonate test explosive devices on December 12, 2025,” the sworn statement alleges.
FBI agents intervened, however, before they could complete their work to assemble a functional explosive device.
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