A shop owner in Iran has been sentenced to two years in prison after she was caught publishing photos without a headscarf, the U.S.-based human rights network, HRANA has disclosed.
According to the network, the woman whose name was given as Zeinab Khenyab was earlier sentenced to three months in prison in December in another case, for ‘propaganda against the state.’
The woman from south-western Iran had attracted attention as part of the nationwide protests when the authorities had her shop shut.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that in September 2022, the death of a young Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, triggered the largest protests in the history of the Islamic republic.
For months, young people, in particular, took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamic system of rule.
Amini fell into a coma after an allegedly violent clash with the morality police, and died shortly afterwards.
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In another report, a US strike in Baghdad yesterday evening killed a pro-Iran military commander, the Pentagon has confirmed that with Al-Hashed al-Shaabi ex-paramilitaries revealing that it hit one of their headquarters.
An Iraqi security official disclosed that two people were seen dead and seven wounded in the drone strike, which the government dubbed a “blatant aggression”.
However, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder disagreed insisting that the strike was an act of self-defence against a commander who was actively planning attacks against US personnel.
“It is important to note that the strike was taken in self-defence, that no civilians were harmed and that no infrastructure or facilities were struck,” Ryder told journalists in Washington.
The strike targeted a leader of Harakat al-Nujaba who was “actively involved in planning and carrying out attacks against American personnel,” according to Ryder, who said it also killed another of the group’s members.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the attack and the toll, confirmed by a Hashed source who asked not to be named, came as tension mounted in the region amid the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip.