Iran, 10 years jail for convert for ‘propagating Christianity’

Today's news: China, several students injured after a car crashed outside a school in Hunan. In Delhi, traffic restrictions and online classes for bad air quality. In Hong Kong, democratic leaders sentenced to prison for ‘subversion’ under the National Security Act. In Tbilisi, street protests against the Georgian Dream continue.

IRAN

A Christian convert was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of, among other things, ‘propagandising’ Christianity. Identified as Toomaj Aryan-Kia, he was also convicted of ‘collaborating’ with the ‘hostile governments’ of Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States and of being a member of ‘anti-regime groups’. The charges were pronounced on 5 November at the Third Chamber of the Revolutionary Court in Karaj, by Judge Mostafa Narimani, who also banned Toomaj from joining any group for two years after his release.

CHINA

Several students were injured after a car crashed outside a primary school in the central Chinese province of Hunan. If proven to be intentional, it would be the third attack within a few days. An eyewitness told local media that the incident occurred at around 7.50 a.m.. About eight to nine people were injured, including students and parents, he added, explaining that all victims were taken to hospital.

INDIA

Bad air quality persists in the northern states of India. India faces air pollution every winter as the cold, heavy air traps dust, emissions and smoke from illegally set agricultural fires in the neighbouring agricultural states of Punjab and Haryana. The Air Quality Index (AQI) peaked at 491 in Delhi, forcing the government to introduce restrictions on vehicle movement and construction activities and schools to conduct classes online.

HONG KONG

A Hong Kong court sentenced top Democrat leaders to years in prison for subversion following a controversial national security trial. Benny Tai and Joshua Wong were part of the so-called Hong Kong 47 group. Tai received 10 years, while Wong received more than four years. Most of the group was found guilty of conspiracy to commit attempted subversion. The trial marked the widest use of the harsh National Security Law (NSL) that China imposed on Hong Kong shortly after the city's explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

GEORGIA

Street protests continue in Tbilisi - accusing the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party of electoral fraud - with large numbers of protesters spending the last few nights in some 30 tents located at one of the city's main intersections, completely blocking traffic, with many citizens bringing blankets, rugs and hot tea to shelter from the cold, and setting up biological toilets.

ISRAEL - GAZA

An Israeli airstrike on a five-storey residential building in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, killed at least 34 people, according to the local civil defence agency. Many were women and children, and it is feared that dozens are still under the rubble. A convoy of 109 UN aid trucks carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, according to Unrwa. Ninety-seven of the trucks were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload the aid after crossing the Kerem Shalom crossing.

RUSSIA

The court in Nizhniy Novgorod sentenced historian Sergei Lukashevsky, former director of the Sakharov Centre closed by the authorities, to eight years in prison, with a ban on accessing any Internet resources, for his ‘defamatory’ posts on the war in Ukraine, in which he denounced the crimes of Russian soldiers against the civilian population.