For Marjane Satrapi, whose classic "Persepolis" tells the story of a girl growing up in post-revolutionary Iran, finding a way to voice support for the anti-theocracy protests in her native land wasn't easy.

The best-selling author has lived and worked in France for over two decades, and no longer claims to represent the country's youths who are defying a vicious crackdown by security forces.

"How am I going to speak for them?" Satrapi told AFP in rare public comments since the start of the uprising.

Concern is growing for two jailed Iranian reporters who helped focus attention on the death of Mahsa Amini but who activists allege are now the targets of a smear campaign portraying them as spies.

Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi were detained in the initial phase of protests that erupted after Amini died following her arrest by Iran's morality police. The movement now poses the biggest challenge to the authorities since the 1979 revolution.

Germany and Israel on Wednesday paid posthumous tribute to two married couples who rescued Berlin Jews from the Nazis, at an emotional ceremony attended by four generations of the families' descendants.

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor presented granddaughters of the rescuers with Righteous Among the Nations medals from Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial at the Berlin City Hall in the first such ceremony there in seven years.

Qatar has rejected calls for a compensation fund for migrant workers killed or injured during World Cup preparations, with the country's labour minister calling it a "publicity stunt".

Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri told AFP that Qatar is already handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and accused the Gulf state's critics of "racism".

Marri said Qatar already has a fund to deal with worker deaths and injuries.

Iranian authorities on Wednesday ordered an investigation into a video showing officers savagely beating a protester that rights groups said exposed the brutality of the crackdown on demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini's death.

The Islamic republic has been rocked by over six weeks of unrest following the death of Amini, 22, who had been arrested by Tehran's morality police. The movement is now seen as the biggest challenge to the country's leaders since the 1979 revolution.

Before Bahrain established the Gulf's first church in the 1930s, priests would visit from Iraq to perform services for a small Catholic community.

Now, its ranks swollen by foreign workers, mostly from India and the Philippines, the community is preparing to welcome the pope, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.

Pope Francis's visit this week, his second to the Arabian peninsula, will be especially emotional for Najla Uchi, whose father Salman built the Sacred Heart church that opened on Christmas Eve, 1939.

Iranians staged new protests Tuesday to denounce the country's theocratic regime in defiance of a crackdown that has seen prominent figures arrested and some even face the death penalty.

Iran has been rocked by six weeks of protests of a scale and nature unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic revolution, sparked by the death in mid-September of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested by the Tehran morality police.

As Qatar busily prepares for the football World Cup, many residents' eyes this week are on its national team in padel, a tennis-like sport that has taken the country by storm.

Five years since it was introduced in the tiny Gulf nation, this doubles game is now its "fastest growing sport", said Mohammed Saadon Alkuwari.

He is playing for Qatar at this year's World Championship that began a short hop away in Dubai on Monday and finishes on Saturday.