Watch this space throughout the week as this post will continue to be updated with recent human rights news and alerts.
- Iranian-Canadian reformist blogger Hossein Derakhshan was sentenced to 19 years in prison by Iran for “helping anti-revolutionary groups.” Derakhshan, formerly a journalist in the country, had gained a reputation for helping Iranian bloggers to publish in the Farsi language. [CBC]
- An Iranian court has banned two leading opposition parties that support Mir Hossein Mousavi, the primary challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Government officials announced that the two parties had been “dissolved”. [BBC]
- World leaders called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend his country’s freeze on settlement construction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the face of renewed threats by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call off negotiations if settlement construction is not halted. [Jerusalem Post / AFP]