Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the fate of women’s rights in Iran, the dissolution of the president’s cabinet in Ivory Coast, and Russian airstrikes against civilians in Ukraine.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the fate of women’s rights in Iran, the dissolution of the president’s cabinet in Ivory Coast, and Russian airstrikes against civilians in Ukraine.
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Women. Life. Freedom.
Amid a growing outcry over women’s rights abuses in Iran, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi with the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. A former journalist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, Mohammadi was celebrated for her fight against women’s oppression by Iran’s so-called morality police.
“We hope today’s prize will send a clear message to world leaders including the United States that international pressure is needed to improve the lives of girls and women in Iran,” said Henrik Urdal, the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which helps selects the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Mohammadi has been arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes for her advocacy work. She is currently serving multiple sentences, adding up to roughly 12 years, at Tehran’s Evin Prison.
Recognition of Mohammadi’s work has also highlighted the plight of other Iranian women and girls, including Armita Garavand, a 16-year-old who remains in a coma after allegedly being attacked by the morality police on Sunday for not wearing a headscarf on a public subway car. Under Iranian law, all women and girls 9 years old and older must cover their hair to abide by the country’s strict interpretation of Islamic dress code.
Garavand is currently hospitalized in an intensive care unit for cerebral hemorrhaging. Iranian authorities have denied accusations of state forces assaulting Garavand. Instead, they allege that Garavand lost consciousness and hit her head when her blood pressure dropped because she skipped breakfast that morning. The whereabouts of Garavand’s mother, who reiterated the police’s official statement, have been unknown since Wednesday.
Many Iranians have drawn parallels between Garavand’s injuries and the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody in September 2022 after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly, sparking mass protests. Since then, the Iranian government has arrested thousands of activists and killed around 500 others. Last month, Iran also passed new legislation imposing stricter fines and prison sentences for those who violate the country’s dress code policies.
Still, Mohammadi maintains that the future of women in Iran remains bright. “The global support and recognition of my human rights advocacy makes me more resolved, more responsible, more passionate and more hopeful,” she wrote in a statement to the New York Times from prison. “I also hope this recognition makes Iranians protesting for change stronger and more organized. Victory is near.”
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Cabinet shake-up. Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara removed the West African nation’s prime minister from office and dissolved his cabinet on Friday. The executive order was an unprecedented but not unexpected move; regional officials predicted that Ouattara would reshuffle his cabinet after his ruling Rally of the Republicans party won a landslide victory in local elections last month. Following the victory, Ouattara had hinted at plans to name new ministers.
Outgoing ministers could return to their posts in the near future. In the meantime, Ouattara and his secretary-general will oversee all government posts until new lawmakers are appointed. The Ivory Coast will hold its next presidential elections in 2025. Ouattara has not yet announced his reelection bid.
Unrelenting airstrikes. Russian forces killed at least two Ukrainians, including a 10-year-old boy, and injured 28 others in Kharkiv on Friday. The Kremlin used Iskander ballistic missiles to target grain and port infrastructure, destroying a residential building in the process. Rescue operations are still underway.
The missile assault came less than 24 hours after Russian airstrikes killed at least 52 people at a café and local shop in a village near the eastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk. The missile strike was one of the war’s deadliest attacks against civilians since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv officials said. The Kharkiv region announced a three-day period of mourning, and on Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights deployed a field team to investigate the attack.
Right-wing constitution advances. A right-wing-dominated body in Chile tasked with creating a new constitution approved a draft on Wednesday that includes a number of conservative policies. Among the articles in the draft are laws that limit citizens’ right to strike, impose stricter migrant expulsion regulations, add greater protections for fetuses, and affirm the right to use private health care and education systems. The draft will next be reviewed by an expert panel, and then the drafting body will have another chance to amend the text before it is finally presented to voters in a referendum.
According to a Cadem survey on Sunday, just 24 percent of Chileans plan to support the draft, with 54 percent planning to reject it. The effort to rewrite Santiago’s constitution began in 2019 and has taken a drastically right-leaning approach following major far-right election wins across the country in May.
What in the World?
A South Korean report on Thursday said North Korea has stopped the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex in order to do what?
A. Modernizing renovations to speed up production
B. Extract plutonium for weapons production
C. Investigate recent nuclear waste accidents
D. Convert it into a uranium enrichment facility
Odds and Ends
‘Tis a monumental day for Shakespeare enthusiasts. A theater in the United Kingdom hath discovered what it believes to be the only surviving stage that the legendary playwright performed on. The floorboards, first discovered last month, were dated back to 1592, when the Bard was likely staging Henry VI and Titus Andronicus in the area. All the world may be a stage—but this might be the most historic one yet.
And the Answer Is…
B. Extract plutonium for weapons production
The expected harvesting of plutonium comes alongside a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over weapons production and technology-sharing negotiations, FP’s Jack Detsch reported last month.
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