Professional Background
Nasrin Sotoudeh, who is 47 and the mother of two young children, is a prominent writer, human rights lawyer, and activist. She began her activism in 1991 as the only female writer for the Nationalist-religious publication Daricheh Goftegoo; one of her first projects was to prepare a series of interviews, reports, and articles on Iranian women to mark International Women’s Day, all of which her editor refused to run. After completing her Master’s Degree in International Law at Shahid Behshti University, Sotoudeh passed the bar exam in 1995 but was not permitted to practice law for another eight years, and so she concentrated on journalism instead, writing for several reformist newspapers, including Jame’e.
When Sotoudeh was finally granted a law license in 2003, she specialized in women’s and children’s rights while continuing to write articles addressing these issues. Her clients have included women’s rights activists, among them the organizers of the grassroots, door-to-door One Million Signatures Campaign; journalists such as Isa Sharkhiz; politicians such as Hashmat Tabarzadi, head of Iran’s banned opposition group the Democratic Front; and legal colleagues such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. She has also represented prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors and many Iranian opposition activists arrested in the crackdown following the June 12, 2009 presidential elections.
Current Status
In September 2011, an appeals court reduced Sotoudeh’s sentence from 11 years to six, and her ban from working a lawyer has been reduced from 20 to 10. The second court session at the Tehran Bar Association reviewing her disbarment was canceled without explanation on September 18, 2011.
One of Sotoudeh’s lawyers, Abdolfattah Soltani, was jailed in September, likely also for working with the Center of Human Rights Defenders.
Sotoudeh has gone on several hunger strikes since her arrest, refusing even water during one 11-day stretch, to protest her detention and ill-treatment inside Evin Prison. She has reportedly lost a considerable amount of weight and is in poor health. She is being held in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, where she has spent much of the time in solitary confinement.
Case History
On August 29, 2010, security officers raided Sotoudeh’s home and office, confiscating several of her files and documents. Authorities also froze her assets. On September 4, 2010, she was summoned to the special court in Evin prison and arrested on charges of “spreading lies against the state,” “cooperating with the Center of Human Rights Defenders,” and “conspiracy to disturb order.” She was denied access to her lawyer and was restricted family visits for the first several months of her detention.
Iran’s official in charge of human rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, claimed that Sotoudeh’s prosecution was not “due to her being a lawyer,” but because of her interviews in defense of her clients who had been arrested during the June 2009 crackdown, which Larijani labeled as “propaganda against the state.”
In addition to the charge for interviews she gave with the media, she is believed to have been charged for a recorded acceptance speech, never shown in Iran, thanking the International Human Rights Organization of Italy for awarding her its Human Rights Prize in 2008, during which she did not wear a head scarf. Sotoudeh was barred from leaving Iran to accept the award personally.
On January 9, 2011, Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced Sotoudeh to a total of 11 years in prison—one year for “spreading lies against the state,” five years for “acting against national security,” and another five years for “cooperating with the Center for Human Rights Defenders.” The court also banned her from practicing law and from traveling outside the country for 20 years, a term that begins after her release from prison and that for all intents and purposes confines her to Iran and bars her from her profession for life.
Professional Background
