Nasrin Sotoudeh
Encyclopedia
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a prominent human rights lawyer in Iran
. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections
as well as prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included noted journalist Isa Saharkhiz
and Heshmat Tabarzadi
, the head of Iran's banned opposition group, the Democratic Front. Sotoudeh was arrested in September 2010 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security and has been imprisoned in solitary confinement
in Evin Prison
. In January 2011, Iranian authorities sentenced Sotoudeh to 11 years in prison in addition to barring her from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years. According to her husband, Reza Khandan, She has stated that she has withdrawn her appeals request.
in Tehran. After completing her degree in international law from the university, Sotoudeh took and passed the bar exam successfully in 1995 but had to wait another eight years to be given her permit to practice law.
Sotoudeh is married to Reza Khandan. They have two children together. Nasrin has emphasized that Reza is "truly a modern man," standing beside her and her work during her struggles.
" in its dispute with the United States during "the Algeria court summons there."
Sotoudeh's "first work in the field of women's rights" was a diverse collection of interviews, reports, and articles for the journal Daricheh. The editor-in-chief of the publication rejected the collection which "made Sotoudeh even more determined in her work for women's rights".
In 1995 at the age of 32 she took the Bar (Kanoon Vokala) exam and earned her lawyers credentials, and became one of most active members of the law society. Nasrin's work has included defending abused children and mothers and working to protect abused children from returning to their abusive fathers. She believes that many abusers are ill or past victims of mistreatment themselves, and in need of professional care and medication. She hopes that the courts will make better use of child specialists and psychologists in verifying abuse cases to better protect innocent children.
She has had many well known activists and/or noted journalist such as Isa Saharkhiz
, Heshmat Tabarzadi
, Nahid Keshavarz, Parvin Ardalan
, Omid Memarian
, Roya Tolouie and many well known child abuse and criminal cases.
Sotoudeh is a close associate of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize
winner Shirin Ebadi
who has called for her release and expressed concern regarding her health. In the statement, Ebadi said, "Ms. Sotoudeh is one of the last remaining courageous human rights lawyers who has accepted all risks for defending the victims of human rights violations in Iran. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel
and Zahra Rahnavard
, the wife of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi
, have also called for Sotoudeh's release.
launched an urgent call for her release, considering "her to be a prisoner of conscience who is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment."
According to the AP
, her arrest "could signal a widening of Iran's crackdown on the pro-reform opposition." Sotoudeh, who is imprisoned in Evin Prison
, has reportedly been held in solitary confinement
.
to protest being denied visits and phone calls from her family. According to her husband, Sotoudeh ended her hunger strike four weeks later, on October 23.
, Sotoudeh continued to protest her detention and ill treatment by going on a dry hunger strike (refusal of both food and water). On November 4, her two young children were permitted to visit her in prison for the first time. They reportedly found her in grave health, having lost a lot of weight.
, the International Commission of Jurists
, the International Federation for Human Rights, the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Union Internationale des Avocats and the World Organisation Against Torture
joined Amnesty International in a joint statement denouncing Sotoudeh's arrest and calling for her immediate release.
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections
Iranian presidential election, 2009
Iran's tenth presidential election was held on 12 June 2009, with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running against three challengers. The next morning the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news agency, announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election...
as well as prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included noted journalist Isa Saharkhiz
Isa Saharkhiz
Isa Saharkhiz , is an Iranian journalist, political figure, and former head of the press department at the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Education during former President Khatami's administration. He is also a member of the central council of the Association for the Defense of Press Freedom in...
and Heshmat Tabarzadi
Heshmat Tabarzadi
Heshmat Tabarzadi is a prominent Iranian democratic activist. Tabarzadi has been arrested several times on charges related to his political activities, most recently in December 2009...
, the head of Iran's banned opposition group, the Democratic Front. Sotoudeh was arrested in September 2010 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security and has been imprisoned in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
in Evin Prison
Evin Prison
Evin House of Detention is a prison in Iran, located in Evin, northwestern Tehran. It is noted for its political prisoners' wing, where prisoners have been held both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution...
. In January 2011, Iranian authorities sentenced Sotoudeh to 11 years in prison in addition to barring her from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years. According to her husband, Reza Khandan, She has stated that she has withdrawn her appeals request.
Family and education
Nasrin Sotoudeh was born in 1963 in a "religious, middle class" Iranian family. She had hoped to study philosophy in college and ranked 53rd in the Iranian national university entrance exam but lacked high enough marks to get a place and ended up studying law at Shahid Beheshti UniversityShahid Beheshti University
Shahid Beheshti University was formerly The National University of Iran . The university's name was changed during the cultural revolution in Iranian universities, 1980-82. It is located in Evin District and extends into Velenjak District in northwestern Tehran, Iran, on a main campus of...
in Tehran. After completing her degree in international law from the university, Sotoudeh took and passed the bar exam successfully in 1995 but had to wait another eight years to be given her permit to practice law.
Sotoudeh is married to Reza Khandan. They have two children together. Nasrin has emphasized that Reza is "truly a modern man," standing beside her and her work during her struggles.
Work and activity
Nasrin started her career at the Iranian Ministry of Housing legal office and after two years joined the legal section of the state-owned Bank Tejarat. During her tenure at the bank she was "heavily involved with preparing the legal case and the legal arguments for many of the cases that Iran presented at The HagueThe Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
" in its dispute with the United States during "the Algeria court summons there."
Sotoudeh's "first work in the field of women's rights" was a diverse collection of interviews, reports, and articles for the journal Daricheh. The editor-in-chief of the publication rejected the collection which "made Sotoudeh even more determined in her work for women's rights".
In 1995 at the age of 32 she took the Bar (Kanoon Vokala) exam and earned her lawyers credentials, and became one of most active members of the law society. Nasrin's work has included defending abused children and mothers and working to protect abused children from returning to their abusive fathers. She believes that many abusers are ill or past victims of mistreatment themselves, and in need of professional care and medication. She hopes that the courts will make better use of child specialists and psychologists in verifying abuse cases to better protect innocent children.
She has had many well known activists and/or noted journalist such as Isa Saharkhiz
Isa Saharkhiz
Isa Saharkhiz , is an Iranian journalist, political figure, and former head of the press department at the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Education during former President Khatami's administration. He is also a member of the central council of the Association for the Defense of Press Freedom in...
, Heshmat Tabarzadi
Heshmat Tabarzadi
Heshmat Tabarzadi is a prominent Iranian democratic activist. Tabarzadi has been arrested several times on charges related to his political activities, most recently in December 2009...
, Nahid Keshavarz, Parvin Ardalan
Parvin Ardalan
Parvin Ardalan, born 1967 in Tehran, is a leading Iranian women's rights activist, writer and journalist. She was awarded the Olof Palme Prize in 2007 for her struggle for equal rights for men and women in Iran. In the 1990s Ardalan, along with e.g...
, Omid Memarian
Omid Memarian
Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist and blogger. He was awarded the Golden pen at the National Press Festival in Iran at 2001...
, Roya Tolouie and many well known child abuse and criminal cases.
Sotoudeh is a close associate of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,...
who has called for her release and expressed concern regarding her health. In the statement, Ebadi said, "Ms. Sotoudeh is one of the last remaining courageous human rights lawyers who has accepted all risks for defending the victims of human rights violations in Iran. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
and Zahra Rahnavard
Zahra Rahnavard
Zahra Rahnavard is an Iranian artist and politician.-Early life:Rahnavard was born in Borujerd, Iran. Her father Haj-Fathali was a Fundamentalist Sh'ia and anti-Communist. After hearing of a gathering of Sh'ia clerics in Iran, Haj-Fathali emigrated to Khomein, Markazi Province where Zahra was born...
, the wife of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh is an Iranian reformist politician, artist and architect who served as the seventy-ninth and last Prime Minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989. He was a Reformist candidate for the 2009 presidential election and eventually the leader of the opposition in the post-election...
, have also called for Sotoudeh's release.
Arrest
On August 28, 2010, Iranian authorities raided Sotoudeh's office. At the time, Sotoudeh was representing Zahra Bahrami, a Netherlands-Iran dual citizen charged with security offenses; it was unclear whether the raid was related to Bahrami. On September 4, 2010, Iranian authorities arrested Sotoudeh herself on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security. Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
launched an urgent call for her release, considering "her to be a prisoner of conscience who is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment."
According to the AP
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, her arrest "could signal a widening of Iran's crackdown on the pro-reform opposition." Sotoudeh, who is imprisoned in Evin Prison
Evin Prison
Evin House of Detention is a prison in Iran, located in Evin, northwestern Tehran. It is noted for its political prisoners' wing, where prisoners have been held both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution...
, has reportedly been held in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
.
First hunger strike
On September 25, she began a hunger strikeHunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
to protest being denied visits and phone calls from her family. According to her husband, Sotoudeh ended her hunger strike four weeks later, on October 23.
Second hunger strike
On October 31, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in IranInternational Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran is a non-government organization that works to bring international attention on what it views as the Iranian government’s repression of human rights and civil liberties in Iran. It is based in the United States...
, Sotoudeh continued to protest her detention and ill treatment by going on a dry hunger strike (refusal of both food and water). On November 4, her two young children were permitted to visit her in prison for the first time. They reportedly found her in grave health, having lost a lot of weight.
Sentence
On, January 9, 2011, Iranian authorities sentenced Sotoudeh to 11 years in jail for charges that include "activities against national security" and "propaganda against the regime." Additionally, she has been barred from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years.International response
In October 2010, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, the International Commission of Jurists
International Commission of Jurists
The International Commission of Jurists is an international human rights non-governmental organization. The Commission itself is a standing group of 60 eminent jurists , including members of the senior judiciary in Australia, Canada, and South Africa and the former UN High Commissioner for Human...
, the International Federation for Human Rights, the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Union Internationale des Avocats and the World Organisation Against Torture
World Organisation Against Torture
The World Organisation Against Torture is the world’s largest coalition of non-governmental organisations fighting against arbitrary detention, torture, summary and extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and other forms of violence...
joined Amnesty International in a joint statement denouncing Sotoudeh's arrest and calling for her immediate release.