Filmmaker Jeff Kaufman Gives Update On Detained Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh

Documentary director Jeff Kaufman has given an update on the situation for detained award-winning Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh following an in-depth call with her husband Reza Khandan.

Kaufman and his casting director and producer wife Marcia Ross became close with Khandan while making their 2020 Olivia Colman-narrated documentary Nasrin.  

The immersive work follows Sotoudeh’s battle to defend human rights in the face of abuses by Iran’s hardline Islamic Republic regime.

“This morning we had an in-depth conversation with Nasrin’s indefatigable husband Reza Khandan. He authorized us to release this update,” wrote Kaufman in a note sent out on Monday evening. Continue Here

The 2023 Laureate: Nasrin Sotoudeh of Iran

The Civil Courage Prize honors the extraordinary few among us who resolutely pursue freedom for many despite the consequences to themselves.

Inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the prize is bestowed by the Train Foundation to those who fight tyranny as a personal mission. Recipients are people who stand between oppressors and the rest of us. Continue Here

Iranian lawyer and human rights activist to receive 2023 Brown Democracy Medal

Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who has been called “Iran’s Nelson Mandela” will receive the 2023 Brown Democracy Medal from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, marking the award's 10th year. Sotoudeh has dedicated her legal career to representing opposition activists in Iran, minors facing unfair sentences and women who protested Iran’s mandatory hijab law. Her clients have included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and pro-democracy activist Heshmat Tabarzadi. Because of this work, Sotoudeh has been repeatedly imprisoned by the Iranian government for crimes against the state. She served one sentence from 2010-13 and was sentenced again in 2018 to 38 years and six months in prison and 148 lashes. “I am deeply touched by the love and kindness that’s behind the Brown Democracy Medal,” Sotoudeh said. “Those of us who are working for democracy in Iran are not doing anything that’s particularly exceptional or distinguished. What is exceptional are the obstacles we’re confronting in Iran.” Sotoudeh is also a longtime opponent of the death penalty. She co-founded the organization Campaign for Step By Step Abolition of the Death Penalty in 2013 to advocate for legislation that would abolish capital punishment in Iran. In 2022, she received the Robert Badinter Award at the 8th World Congress Against the Death Penalty. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh: Iran’s protests have quieted but anger remains, says renowned human rights lawyer – CNN

A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer has told CNN that while a brutal state crackdown has succeeded in quieting the demonstrations that gripped the country for months, many Iranians still want regime change. In an exclusive interview Wednesday from her home in Tehran, Nasrin Sotoudeh told CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour that, "the protests have somewhat died down, but that doesn't mean that the people are no longer angry ... they constantly want and still want a regime change. They want a referendum." Sotoudeh, renowned around the world for advocating for the rights of women, children and activists in Iran, is currently on medical furlough from jail, after being sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes in March 2019. Nationwide protests rocked Iran last fall, as decades of bitterness over the regime's treatment of women and other issues boiled over after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country's so-called morality police. Authorities violently repressed the months-long movement, which had posed one of the biggest domestic threats to Iran's ruling clerical regime in more than a decade. Still, Sotoudeh emphasizes that the protest movement endures. "Official authorities are trying to flex their muscles more, they're trying to show their strength a lot more than before, but civil disobedience continues and many women courageously take to the streets." Continue Here

THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2021: Nasrin Sotoudeh

Nasrin Sotoudeh is an exemplary Iranian woman and lawyer who for years has been struggling to restore women’s rights.

When my friends and I founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in 1994, I invited Nasrin to collaborate. She defended juveniles under the age of 18 who had been sentenced to death, and in many cases was able to prevent their executions. A few years later, I founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center with some colleagues. She joined us and bravely defended political prisoners, particularly women who had been arrested for protesting discriminatory laws.

Nasrin has been imprisoned many times for her work. In 2019, she was sentenced to 38 years in prison, 12 years of them with no possibility of parole. Even inside prison, she demonstrates inspiring clarity of purpose, last year making headlines worldwide by twice going on hunger strikes to demand the release of political prisoners. The 2020 documentary Nasrin tells her story.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian Rights Lawyer, Home Temporarily: “We Are Hoping for a Better Future That Can Protect Us”

Nasrin Sotoudeh is home from prison on temporary medical leave. That is a simple thing to write, but there is so much emotion, strength, sacrifice, vision and history involved. And so much at stake in what will come next.

The internationally acclaimed Iranian human rights attorney was arrested in June 2018 because of her work representing opposition activists, religious minorities and women who publicly protested Iran’s mandatory hijab law. Nasrin was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on charges that included “inciting corruption and prostitution,” “disrupting public order,” “propaganda against the state” and “collusion against national security.” She had previously been imprisoned from 2010 to 2013 on similar charges—a heavy price to pay for loving one’s country.

Nelson Mandela said, “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.” The Iranian government’s persecution of Sotoudeh reflects a systemic disregard for the needs, rights and dignity of its citizens.

In August 2020, Nasrin launched a 46-day hunger strike in Evin Prison that brought global attention to poor health conditions in Iranian prisons. She was punished for her protest by being transferred, despite a serious heart condition, to an overcrowded windowless cell in the notoriously unsanitary Qarchak Women’s Prison. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Latest Dispatch from Prison to the U.N. Is a Desperate Plea

Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian human rights attorney and staunch feminist, has represented political prisoners, religious minorities, children and women punished for not wearing hijabs. (Her incredible—and tragic—story is documented in the fiolm NASRIN, directed, produced and written by filmmaker Jeff Kaufman.)

In 2018, Sotoudeh was arrested and imprisoned for standing up for women’s rights. In January, she was transferred to Qarchak women’s prison, one of the worst prisons in the world, where she is currently being held. (“Qarchak is worse than you can imagine,” a former political prisoner told Ms. reporter Pardis Mahdavi). Almost immediately, she was infected with COVID-19, made even more dangerous due to a heart condition Sotoudeh developed after a 46-day hunger strike.

At some risk to herself and her family, Sotoudeh has written a letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres sounding the alarm about rampant executions in Iran. In 2020, over 230 men, women and children were executed in Iran. In January 2021, a staggering 27 people were hung there. Continue Here

Opinion: ‘Iran’s Nelson Mandela’ is back in prison. Biden must push for her freedom.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, an attorney and human rights activist often called “Iran’s Nelson Mandela,” is back in an overcrowded prison cell, separated from those she loves. Under arrest since 2018, she was granted a brief medical leave this month, but it was abruptly canceled on Jan. 19, the same day the government froze her family’s bank accounts. That afternoon, her husband, Reza Khandan, drove her to Qarchak's prison for women, accompanied by their daughter Mehraveh and son Nima.

Imagine what each of them was thinking and feeling during that hour-long drive — the dread and the heartbreak. Those are emotions felt by political prisoners and their loved ones all over the world. Repressive regimes use personal cruelty to punish their opponents. Continue Here

ABA Center for Human Rights presents Eleanor Roosevelt Prizes to Fauci, King and Sotoudeh

The American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights presented its third annual Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Global Human Rights Advancement this month. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Billie Jean King and Nasrin Sotoudeh were honored in a virtual ceremony. The ceremony, which included interviews with the honorees and presented by the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, can be seen here.

With the blessing of the Roosevelt family, the center in 2018 established the Eleanor Roosevelt Prize to celebrate persons and organizations having an enduring, positive impact in advancing the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Eleanor Roosevelt championed. Continue Here

The Ms. Top Feminists of 2020

Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran who has represented political prisoners, religious minorities, children and women punished for not wearing hijabs. 

In 2018, Sotoudeh was arrested and sentenced to 38 years and 148 lashes—all for the “crime” of standing up for women’s rights. 

This year, she went on a 46-day hunger strike to raise awareness for the high risk of COVID-19 outbreaks in Iranian prisons, and to call for the release of political prisoners during the pandemic. Her amazing work is documented in the recently-released documentary Nasrin, and she has proven this year that she will continue to fight for the rights of political, religious, and gender minorities in Iran, regardless of her own incarceration. Continue Here

Iran Orders Women’s Rights Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh Back to Prison

PEN America today condemned Iranian authorities for ordering the re-imprisonment of women’s rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh, winner of the 2011 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. Sotoudeh had been granted a temporary furlough on November 7 after she sustained a lengthy hunger strike and a bout with COVID-19. PEN America has repeatedly called for Sotoudeh’s freedom and has marshaled thousands to sign a petition demanding her permanent release.

“After contracting COVID-19 and sustaining a weeks-long hunger strike, Nasrin is now being ordered back behind bars,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of PEN America’s Free Expression At Risk Programs. “It’s a stunning abrogation of her basic rights, and directly in contravention of the guidance of health professionals. She is still in quarantine, unable to hug her own children. Instead of giving her time to recover and releasing her permanently, Iranian authorities are sentencing Nasrin to an uncertain and potentially fatal sentence. It’s time to end the farce. Nasrin is a defender of women’s rights, a writer and lawyer with a forceful outlook who has committed no crime. We call on Iran’s government to permanently free Nasrin, to cease its harassment of her and her family, and to respond to Nasrin’s renewed call for the release of other political prisoners, particularly Ahmadreza Djalali, the Iranian-Swedish academic who is reportedly at imminent risk of execution.” Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh: Iran human rights lawyer ordered back to jail

Prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh will be moved back to prison less than one month after being temporarily released because of health concerns, according to her husband.

Reza Khandan said a medical examiner had recommended a two-week extension of his wife’s furlough, but authorities said she must immediately return.

“They called from the courts and said she has to report back to prison today and we’re just packing up to go now,” he told Al Jazeera.

Sotoudeh – a recipient of the prestigious Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament – was arrested two years ago on charges of collusion, spreading propaganda, and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.

She was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes in 2019. She is required by law to serve at least 12 years of her sentence before being eligible for conditional release. Continue Here

German MPs demand permanent release of Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh

38 members of the German Bundestag demand the unconditional and permanent release of Iranian lawyer and 2020 #RightLivelihood Laureate Nasrin Sotoudeh in an open letter on November 12. The signatories include Bundestag Vice-President Claudia Roth (Die Grünen), Dr Anton Hofreiter (Chairperson of Die Grünen), Michael Brand (CDU), Gyde Jensen (FDP), Bärbel Kofler (SPD) and Gysi Gregor (Die Linke).

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'It's Like We’re Hanging in the Air.' Iranian Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh's Husband on Her Temporary Release From Prison

On Nov 7, the day that Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh won temporary release from Qarchak women’s prison in Tehran, a video clip circulated on social media showing her wearing a green hijab and clasping a bouquet of chrysanthemums. A surgical mask obscured Sotoudeh’s mouth, but her cheeks rose and her eyes crinkled as she drew her 14-year-old son into a tight embrace. For Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan, the joy of their long-awaited reunion was tempered with a sense of anxiety. “When we heard the news of her being released we were so happy,” he told TIME on Nov. 18 from their home in Tehran. “But at the same time, we realized that she had somehow been in contact with the virus in Qarchak Prison.” 

Iran is the worst-hit country in the Middle East by the pandemic, according to its government figures—though even those are likely to be an underestimate. Human rights attorney Sotoudeh—who has been imprisoned since June 2018—has twice gone on hunger strike to demand authorities release other political prisoners who are at risk of infection in the country’s often overcrowded and unsanitary detention facilities. Her latest ended after six weeks, after Sotoudeh was hospitalized in dire health. Just days after authorities released the 57-year-old from prison on a five-day medical furlough, Sotoudeh tested positive for COVID-19, Kanhdan wrote on social media. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian Women’s Rights Attorney, Freed from Prison After Two Years

After a six-week hunger strike, Iranian women’s rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh—unfairly jailed two years ago on spying and propaganda charges—has been temporarily released from Qarchak prison on medical leave. She is now home with her husband, Reza Khandan, as her family seeks urgent medical care. 

Sotoudeh’s release is due in large part to international pressure from the tireless efforts of activists and human rights groups.

One such activist is Jeff Kaufman, a documentary filmmaker behind the film “Nasrin.” On Wednesday, Oct. 28, Kaufman—joined by Mansoureh Shojaee, initiator of the “One Million Signatures” campaign, and film producer Marcia Ross—gave the following speech to the European Parliament to raise awareness about the incredible activism of Iranian women’s rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh.

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2020 Right Livelihood Laureates Press Release

Human rights defenders from Iran and Belarus among 2020 Right Livelihood Laureates

Imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, US civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, indigenous rights and environmental activist Lottie Cunningham Wren of Nicaragua and Belarusian pro-democracy activist Ales Bialiatski and the non-governmental organization Human Rights Centre “Viasna” have been selected as the 2020 Right Livelihood Laureates, the Swedish Right Livelihood Foundation said on Thursday.

The Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” has been honoring courageous change makers since 1980. By recognizing the actions of brave visionaries and building impactful connections around the world, the Award aims to boost urgent and long-term social change.

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Nasrin Sotoudeh transferred to Gharchak Prison - Lawyers for Lawyers

Nasrin Sotoudeh has been moved to the notorious Gharchack Prison in the city of Varamin on 20 October 2020, despite serious medical issues that require her hospitalization. This has been reported by Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Ms. Sotoudeh has serious cardiac and pulmonary complication after being on a hunger strike. On 26 September 2020, Nasrin Sotoudeh ended her hunger strike that she had been on since 11 August. In a letter detailing her reasons for starting a hunger strike, Ms. Sotoudeh has demanded the release of prisoners held for political motives who are at risk of catching Covid-19. Ms. Sotoudeh was hospitalized on 19 September after her health was rapidly deteriorating. Despite having cardiac issues, she was returned to Evin Prison on 23 September.

On 20 October 2020, Reza Khandan, Ms. Sotoudeh’s husband stated “When Nasrin’s heart condition became worse, she needed an angiography. We have been waiting these past few days to prepare for her transfer to the hospital [from Evin Prison]. Today the authorities told her to get ready to go to the hospital but then she ended up in Gharchak Prison. The transfer was not announced by the prison authorities but by Nasrin herself who was allowed to make a brief phone call to give the news.”

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IRAN: Nasrin Sotoudeh ends hunger strike, must be immediately released from prison

Paris-Geneva, September 30, 2020 – Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh decided to put an end to her 46-day hunger strike on September 25, 2020, due to her alarming health condition. The Observatory (FIDH-OMCT) and the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) urge the Iranian authorities to release her immediately.

On September 25, 2020, Nasrin Sotoudeh ended the hunger strike she began on August 11, 2020, due to a severe deterioration of her health. Ms. Sotoudeh went on a hunger strike to call for the immediate release of all human rights defenders and political prisoners in Iran, whose lives have been particularly threatened because of the appalling conditions in Iranian detention facilities, exacerbated by the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Why Iran’s leading dissident is fighting for her life

This past weekend, Iran’s most prominent human rights defender, Nasrin Sotoudeh, entered the hospital because of heart and respiratory problems resulting from a nearly six-week-long hunger strike. Sotoudeh is a veteran of this extreme form of protest, but this time the circumstances are much more dire for her and other political prisoners in the country. On Aug. 12, the 57-year-old lawyer stopped eating to protest the scandalous mistreatment of prisoners of conscience currently detained in Iran. The refusal of Iranian authorities to take any meaningful precautions to protect the health of political prisoners during the novel coronavirus pandemic dramatizes the depths of the government’s contempt for civil society and basic human rights. For years Sotoudeh has been on the legal front lines, defending Iranians who dare to question the Islamic republic’s archaic laws and their arbitrary enforcement. In recent years, she has represented women who protested the forced hijab and those calling for the end to the death penalty. Continue Here

German Judges Association Awards Iranian Rights Lawyer On Hunger Strike In Prison

The German Judges Association (DRB) has awarded its Human Rights Prize to the Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh who is currently on a hunger strike in an Iranian prison in protest to the conditions of political prisoners. “Nasrin Sotoudeh has become a symbol of the Iranian civil rights movement through her courage and tireless commitment to human rights and the rule of law,” the presidents of the German Judges Association said on Wednesday. Barbara Stockinger and Joachim Lüblinghoff stated that now more than ever, Ms. Sotoudeh needs wide international support, and that they wanted to honor her "highly impressive commitment in Iran and to bring her fate to the public attention". The 57-year-old lawyer and rights activist began a hunger strike at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison on August 11 to protest the "unfair" and "illegal" conditions of political prisoners in Iran. She has demanded the release of political prisoners to protect them from the spread of coronavirus in prisons. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Daughter Detained, Persecution of Imprisoned Lawyer’s Family Intensifies

August 18, 2020—Mehraveh Khandan, the 20-year-old daughter of imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested at her home in Tehran on August 17, 2020, and detained in order to force her mother to end her hunger strike in Evin Prison, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.

She was arrested without prior notice on specious charges of “insult and assault” and subsequently released on bail.

“The Iranian authorities haven’t been able to silence Nasrin Sotoudeh nor end her brave protest in prison, so now they’re going after her daughter,” said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director.

“The international community should forcefully condemn this thuggish and unlawful behavior,” he added.

CHRI calls on the authorities in Iran to immediately drop all charges against Mehraveh Khandan and to cease punishing the family of Nasrin Sotoudeh in order to silence her.

The authorities also recently blocked the bank account of Nasrin Sotoudeh, cutting off funds for the family.

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Nasrin Sotoudeh's Hunger Strike Amid Prison COVID-19 Outbreak

It was the acclaimed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh whom activist Shaparak Shajarizadeh credits with saving her life. Detained in February 2018 for taking part in the White Wednesday civil disobedience movement against Iran’s mandatory veiling law, Shajarizadeh was placed in solitary confinement while Iranian authorities denied her access to her lawyer. Released, briefly detained again the next month, and again in May while on holiday with her son, she began a hunger strike, initially refusing water. “Nasrin came to prison and told me if you want to go on a hunger strike, that’s okay, but drink water,” Shajarizadeh tells TIME from Toronto, where she has lived in exile since September 2018. A veteran of the 40-year-long fight for women’s rights in Iran, Sotoudeh offered more than just reassurance. Her advocacy focussed international attention on the cases of activists detained for protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law. Continue Here

Jailed Iran activist Nasrin Sotoudeh goes on hunger strike

Human rights activist and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has begun a hunger strike to protest “the injustice and illegal conditions that political detainees are subjected to in Iranian prisons”. “My client Nasrin Sotoudeh announced today, August 12, in a letter; She has gone on a hunger strike to protest the unjust and illegal situation of political prisoners, which has been exacerbated by the outbreak of Corona,” Sotoudeh’s lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, said on Twitter. In September 2010, Iranian authorities arrested Sotoudeh for participating in protests following the 2009 presidential elections, accusing her of insulting the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In January 2011, an Iranian court sentenced her to 11 years in prison and banned her from practicing law or traveling for 20 years. Continue Here

Iran's Nasrin Sotoudeh Writes on International Women's Day 

One afternoon, on a late spring day in 2018, a group of officers from the Iranian Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Intelligence came and arrested me while I was home alone. They took me to Evin Prison in a green taxi. In absentia, I had been sentenced to five years in prison for my work as a women’s rights and human rights attorney. A few months later, seven more charges were added, and I was given a total of over 33 years in prison plus 148 lashes. The heaviest of these sentences was 12 years for “promoting immorality and indecency.” Currently, I am in the women’s ward which consists of three rooms and forty inmates. Most have been arrested for political reasons. The occupants of Evin Prison’s women’s ward are human right activists, women’s rights activists, civil and environmental activists, religious minorities and mystics, members of labor movements, and individuals with dual citizenship who are accused of spying. Continue Here

She Defended Iranian Women Who Removed Their Head-Coverings. Now She Is a Convict.

A prominent Iranian lawyer who defended women arrested when they defied Iran’s head-covering rule has been convicted of security-related crimes in a secret trial and could face a “very lengthy sentence,” a human-rights monitoring group reported Wednesday. The group, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said it had learned of the conviction of the lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, from her husband. She was seized at her home by security agents last June and placed in Evin Prison in Tehran. Ms. Sotoudeh, 55, who has been in and out of Iranian prisons several times, is an international symbol of defiance to the limits on personal and political freedoms imposed by the Islamic Republic’s religious hierarchy. She won Europe’s most prestigious human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, in 2012. Continue Here

Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh jailed 'for 38 years' in Iran

Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, has been handed a new sentence that her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory headscarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran’s supreme leader, her lawyer said. She was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security – charges she denied – and was released after serving half of her six-year term. The European parliament awarded her the Sakharov human rights prize. Mohammad Moqiseh, a judge at a revolutionary court in Tehran, said on Monday that Sotoudeh had been sentenced to five years for assembling against national security and two years for insulting the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh: Iran lawyer who defended headscarf protesters jailed 

A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer who has represented women arrested for removing their headscarves has been jailed. Nasrin Sotoudeh was charged with several national security-related offenses, all of which she denies. There are conflicting reports over the length of her sentence. Her family said she was given 38 years and 148 lashes. Iran's Isna news agency reported she had been sentenced to seven years in prison, with no lashes. Her husband later clarified to BBC Persian that while she had been sentenced to 38 years in total, according to a new Iranian law, she would only serve the longest sentence for one of the convictions, which was 10 years.  Another two and a half years were added to this because of the number of charges against her, raising the total to 12 years, he said. Rights groups strongly criticized the "shocking" sentence against the award-winning human rights activist. Continue Here

Iran’s most prominent human rights lawyer is in jail. Again.

On Wednesday, Iran’s leading human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested again. It was a reminder that President Hassan Rouhani is failing to deliver on many of the key reforms he promised when he was elected in 2013. Writing on his Facebook page, Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, announced that “a few hours ago Nasrin was arrested at home and sent to the court at Evin [Prison].” This family has been through all of this before. “I once told interrogators in the interrogation room: ‘Of all the things the authorities should do for their country, you only know one, and that is arresting people,'” Khandan fearlessly wrote in his post. Continue Here

Iran’s Orwellian Arrest of Its Leading Female Human-Rights Lawyer 

I last spoke with Nasrin Sotoudeh in February, when she was defending young women arrested during the so-called Girls of Revolution Street Protest. Female protesters had been hauled off the streets for daring to take off their hijabs—head coverings required by law in Iran—and waving them at the end of a stick, like a flag of liberation. Their hair hung free. Early protesters appeared, symbolically, on the Tehran thoroughfare renamed for the country’s revolution, in 1979, adding a subtle double-entendre to the new women’s crusade. The protest was all the more striking because they acted individually, not en masse, making them more vulnerable to arrest. The women were charged with “a sinful act” and “violating public prudency” as well as “encouraging immorality or prostitution.” The charges carried sentences of up to a decade in prison. Continue Here

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer detained again

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, was detained by security forces on Wednesday, according to her family. Her husband, Reza Khandan, said Sotoudeh was arrested at their home in Tehran and taken to Evin prison, a notorious lockup just outside the city. "Once, during an interrogation session, I told the interrogators that of all the services that a government must provide for its citizens you only know of one, arresting people," Khandan said in the Facebook post announcing his wife's arrest. The post did not specify if Sotoudeh had been charged with a crime or why she was detained. Sotoudeh is a well-known defender of human rights in Iran. She recently represented a young woman arrested in December 2017 for removing her hijab during a wave of anti-regime protests. Video of the young activist went viral sparking other women to remove their headscarves in public to protest Iran's mandatory veiling laws. Continue Here

Iranian Activist Says Her Release Is A Gesture, Not A New Era

When Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, was released in September 2013 — along with 11 other high-profile political prisoners — many Iranians saw the move as opening a new era following the election of centrist President Hassan Rouhani. He had promised to release political prisoners rounded up after the contested 2009 elections, when thousands of protesters, known as the Green Movement, were tried and jailed. The high-profile gesture came less than a week before Rouhani's first speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. He had campaigned on a pledge to open a broad dialogue with the West aimed at finding a way out of a nuclear standoff. Continue Here

Nasrin Sotoudeh and director Jafar Panahi share top human rights prize

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, expressed her concern for the jailed Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh as she received the European parliament's most prestigious human rights award. Sotoudeh and an acclaimed Iranian film director, Jafar Panahi, were on Friday awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, previously won by the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. The prize is named after the Soviet physicist and outspoken dissident Andrei Sakharov. Sotoudeh fell foul of the Iranian authorities for representing political activists and is serving a six-year prison term in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. She is on day 10 of a hunger strike in protest at the state's harassment of her family and is reported to have been taken to the prison's medical facility as her health deteriorated. Continue Here