Female students have been banned from private and public universities in Afghanistan effective immediately and until further notice, a Taliban government spokesman said Tuesday in the latest edict cracking down on women’s rights and freedoms.

Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women’s and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

The Islamic Republic on Monday hanged a man in public who state media said had been convicted of killing two members of the security forces, the second execution in less than a week of people involved in protests against Iran's ruling theocracy.

Nationwide unrest erupted three months ago after the death while in detention of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic's mandatory dress code laws.

Uyghur activists are demanding that the Biden administration extract details from China about the fire that the Chinese government says killed 10 people trapped in a building, alleging that the true number of deaths is far higher due to China's coronavirus lockdowns.

"The Chinese government officially recorded 10 deaths," said Salih Hudayar, who heads a human rights group focused on China's genocide of the ethnic minority group. "Photos suggest the number of Uyghurs slain was much higher."

A trickle of people passes through a normally busy border crossing in the mountains of northern Iraq. “It’s a big prison over there,” one Iranian woman says, gesturing to the hulking gate that marks the border with Iran’s Islamic Republic, which has been convulsed by protest for over two months.

A portrait of the founder of Iran’s clerical regime, Ruhollah Khomeini, looms against a backdrop of rolling hills studded with streetlights. Snatches of travelers’ muted conversations punctuate an eerie silence.

The UN Human Rights Office released their long-awaited analysis of allegations of human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or XUAR, on Wednesday, saying it raises concerns from the perspective of international criminal law.

According to the report, China’s detention of Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim communities in Xinjiang has allegedly deprived the groups of their fundamental rights and may constitute international crimes, particularly crimes against humanity.

For most teenage girls in Afghanistan, it’s been a year since they set foot in a classroom. With no sign the ruling Taliban will allow them back to school, some are trying to find ways to keep education from stalling for a generation of young women.

At a house in Kabul, dozens gathered on a recent day for classes in an informal school set up by Sodaba Nazhand. She and her sister teach English, science, and math to girls who should be in secondary school.

Longtime Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been found guilty of fraud and embezzlement charges, as well as contempt of court, according to a verdict handed down on Tuesday.

The court sentenced Navalny to nine years in a maximum security prison. A judge also ordered Navalny to pay a fine of 1.2 million rubles (about $11,500, €10,400).

A Russian court on Tuesday found Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty of fraud, state media report.

Navalny, who is already serving a two and a half year jail sentence for a theft case he claims is politically motivated, is now facing a 13-year prison sentence in a maximum security facility.

"Navalny committed fraud, i.e., the theft of someone else's property by deception," Judge Margarita Kotova said while announcing the verdict in a Moscow courtroom, according to Russian state media.

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security jail, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass.

A prominent Kremlin critic, Navalny was convicted on fraud charges by Moscow's Lefortovo court over allegations that he stole from his Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Navalny, 45, is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a detention center east of the Russian capital after being arrested in February 2021 for violating probation terms, a verdict he said was politically motivated.

ISTANBUL — In quiet, polite voices, Aysu and Lütfullah Kuçar describe the nearly 20 months they spent in state boarding schools in China's western region of Xinjiang, forcibly separated from their family.

Under the watchful gaze of their father, the two ethnically Uyghur children say that their heads were shaved and that class monitors and teachers frequently hit them, locked them in dark rooms and forced them to hold stress positions as punishment for perceived transgressions.