Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook (Arseh Sevom)

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Some people in Iran are feeling the effects of shortages of medicine and high prices, while an artist challenges passersby at the United Nations to confront the growing problem.

Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi receive the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia, sending messages for justice and freedom, as imprisoned human rights activists call for others to spread the call for dignity. Mohammad Maleki, the former Chancellor Tehran University, is summoned to serve a six-year prison term. Journalists call for an end to the intimidation of political prisoners' family members by interrogators.

The Supreme Leader gets a Facebook page, as Parliament debates election reform and reduced powers for the President and Human Rights Watch issues a report on the more than 40,000 Iranians seeking asylum abroad while a photographer shows us that life in Iran goes on.<

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The Latest from Iran (13 December): Nuclear Talks with the IAEA

The European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia to detained lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is threatened with imprisonment

See also Iran Snap Analysis: Speculating about the Next President
The Latest from Iran (12 December): A 78-Year-Old Academic is Imprisoned for Writing the Supreme Leader

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1602 GMT: A Death in Detention. Human rights activists claim participants in the 40th day memorial for blogger Sattar Beheshti, who died on 3 November under interrogation in Evin Prison, have been beaten, with several arrested.

Security officers reportedly raided the services at the Imam Mohamad Taghi Shrine in Robat Karim,, near Tehran.

Beheshti's mother was said to have sustained leg and knee injuries. Beheshti’s brother was detained for two hours.

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