the subjects
NASRIN SOTOUDEH
In the courts and on the streets, Nasrin Sotoudeh has long fought for the rights of women, children, LGBT prisoners, religious minorities, journalists and artists, and those facing the death penalty. She began her career a bank employee. On the side, she wrote for newspapers and journals under different names about the violation of human rights and women’s rights. She started to practice law in 2003, and has often worked as a human rights activist with her husband, Reza Khandan. They have two children. Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018 for representing women who publicly protest Iran’s mandatory hijab laws, and she was sentenced to 38 years in prison, plus 148 lashes. Even in prison she has continued to challenge the authorities. In 2020 she launched a hunger strike to protest poor health conditions and the risk of Covid-19 in Iranian prisons.
ANN CURRY
Ann Curry is an American journalist and photojournalist, who has been a reporter for more than 30 years. Curry has reported from the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan, Darfur, Congo and the Central African Republic. In 2009, she travel to Iran and interviewed Nasrin Sotoudeh for the NBC Dateline special “Behind the Veil: Inside Iran.”
SHIRIN EBADI
Shirin Ebadi is a former Iranian lawyer and judge, a human rights activist, and the founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee rights.
NARGES HOSSEINI
In 2018, Narges Hosseini stood on an electricity box on Tehran’s Revolution Street and removed her headscarf to protest Iran’s mandatory Hijab law. She was immediately arrested and soon represented by Nasrin Sotoudeh. The prosecutor said she had attempted to "encourage corruption through the removal of the hijab in public." A graduate student of sociology, she was later sentenced to two years in prison, with all but four months suspended.
REZA KHANDAN
Iranian activist Reza Khandan is the husband of Nasrin Sotoudeh. A designer and graphic artist, he has been imprisoned several times, most recently from September to December 2018 after he posted on Facebook about human rights violations in Iran. He was charged with acting against Iran’s national security and supporting “anti-hijab” action and still faces a six-year prison sentence.
JAFAR PANAHI
Jafar Panâhi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor. His feature film debut, The White Balloon won the Caméra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. In 2010 Panahi was given a 20-year ban on making films, but he has continued to make acclaimed movies, including Taxi which featured himself as a Tehran taxi driver and Nasrin Sotoudeh as one of his passengers. It won the top prize at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015. In 2012 Panahi was co-winner, with Nasrin Sotoudeh, of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
TAGHI RAHMANI
Taghi Rahmani is a journalist, author, and political activist who has spent more than a third of his life in Iranian prisons. He is married to Narges Mohammadi, another prominent Iranian human rights activist currently under imprisonment in Iran after being recently handed a 16-year sentence. In 2011, Rahmani immigrated to France with their two children where he now lives in exile.
MARIETJE SCHAAKE
Between 2009 and 2019, Marietje Schaake served as a Member of European Parliament for the Dutch liberal democratic party. During that time she was instrumental in the presentation of the Sakharov Prize to Nasrin Sotoudeh. She is now the international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence where she focused on trade, foreign affairs and technology policies. Marietje is affiliated with a number of non-profits including the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Observer Research Foundation in India and writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and a bi-monthly column for the Dutch NRC newspaper.
MANSOUREH SHOJAEE
Mansoureh Shojaee has been one of the leaders of the Iranian women’s rights movement for over 20 years and involved in politics for more than 30 years. She was one of the creators of the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality and co-founder of the website The Feminist School. She was imprisoned several times in Iran, and now lives in exile in the Netherlands. Shojaee is the founder of The Iranian Women’s Movement Museum, and of the online platform the Iran Women’s Movement Documentation Center.