{"id":1445,"date":"2019-03-06T14:55:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T14:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2019-03-06T14:55:34","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T14:55:34","slug":"nasrin-sotoudeh-attorney-who-defended-hijab-protesters-convicted-of-national-security-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1445","title":{"rendered":"Nasrin Sotoudeh, Attorney Who Defended Hijab Protesters, Convicted of \u201cNational Security\u201d Crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prominent Human Rights Defender Was Facing Decades in Prison, Sentence Unclear<\/p><\/div>\n

March 5, 2019 \u2013 The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) forcefully condemns the conviction of prominent Iranian defense attorney\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0in a court process sorely lacking in international standards of due process.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo amount of spin will be able to conceal the fact that Sotoudeh is being persecuted for her peaceful defense of human rights in Iran, including a woman\u2019s right to choose whether to wear a hijab,\u201d said CHRI\u2019s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe international community should band together to forcefully condemn the abhorrent treatment of this courageous defense lawyer and demand her release,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

One of Iran\u2019s most outspoken human rights defenders, Sotoudeh has been jailed since June 2018 when she was detained in part\u00a0for\u00a0representing women\u00a0in a court of law who had been arrested for\u00a0peacefully protesting\u00a0the state\u2019s compulsory hijab law.<\/p>\n

She was convicted on the basis of several charges but has not received the verdict or her sentence in writing, her husband\u00a0Reza Khandan\u00a0told CHRI on March 5, 2019.<\/p>\n

Khandan was sentenced to\u00a0six years in prison\u00a0in January 2019 in part for posting updates about his wife\u2019s case on Facebook. It remains to be seen what will happen to their two children if both their parents are imprisoned at the same time.<\/p>\n

Sotoudeh was tried in absentia in Tehran on December 30, 2018, at Branch 28 of the\u00a0Revolutionary Courtpresided by hardline Judge Mohammad Moghiseh. She refused to appear in court because she was denied the right to choose her own lawyer and wanted to protest the unjust judicial process, according to Khandan.<\/p>\n

It is not clear which charges Sotoudeh was convicted of but the charges she was facing could result in decades of imprisonment: \u201cassembly and collusion against national security,\u201d \u201cpropaganda against the state,\u201d \u201cmembership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center, the Legam group [against capital punishment], and the National Peace Council,\u201d \u201cencouraging corruption and prostitution,\u201d \u201cappearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab,\u201d \u201cdisturbing public peace and order\u201d and \u201cpublishing falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sotoudeh, 55, has been\u00a0detained\u00a0since June 13, 2018, after security agents unexpectedly appeared at her home and took her to Evin Prison in Tehran. Once inside the prison, Sotoudeh was told she would be serving a five-year prison sentence issued to her in absentia by Judge Moghiseh in 2015 and that she was facing\u00a0multiple other charges.<\/p>\n

In addition to defending women who were\u00a0arrested\u00a0for protesting Iran\u2019s compulsory hijab law, Sotoudeh has also publicly criticized the judiciary\u2019s decision to\u00a0force detainees facing politically motivated charges to\u00a0choose their counsel\u00a0from a list of lawyers approved by the judiciary.<\/p>\n

From 2010-13, Sotoudeh served three years in Evin Prison for taking on politically sensitive cases in Iran as a defense attorney.<\/p>\n

In July 2018, the International Bar Association\u2019s Human Rights Institute\u00a0(IBAHRI) sent a\u00a0letter\u00a0to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calling for Sotoudeh\u2019s immediate release.<\/p>\n

Sotoudeh is among at least\u00a0seven human rights attorneys\u00a0who were arrested in Iran in 2018 in a\u00a0widening crackdown\u00a0aimed at further restricting detainees\u2019 right to counsel.<\/p>\n

In September 2018, she was awarded the prestigious\u00a0Ludovic Trarieux Human Rights Prize\u00a0for her commitment to human rights and the independence of the legal profession. Sotoudeh was also awarded the European Parliament\u2019s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2012.<\/p>\n

In November 2018, the UN\u00a0reiterated\u00a0its \u201cconcern at the in-absentia conviction and subsequent imprisonment\u201d of Sotoudeh and called on Iran to guarantee her right to a fair trial along with her husband and fellow women\u2019s rights activist\u00a0Farhad Meysami, as well as ensure that they are not \u201cdeprived arbitrarily of their liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding its voice to an increasingly international call, the European Parliament overwhelmingly\u00a0passed a motion\u00a0in December 2018 urging the Iranian authorities to \u201cimmediately and unconditionally release\u201d Sotoudeh.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the beginning, Sotoudeh was forced to navigate a Kafkaesque legal system in which she was denied the right to choose her own lawyer and tried in absentia,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0Iranian judiciary\u00a0prosecuted Sotoudeh under national security charges to send a clear message that it will not tolerate the peaceful defense of human rights by activists or their lawyers,\u201d he added. \u201cWe should all speak out against this travesty of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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March 5, 2019 \u2013 The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) forcefully condemns the conviction of prominent Iranian defense attorney\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0in a court process sorely lacking in international standards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1446,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}