{"id":1636,"date":"2020-07-29T13:06:46","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T13:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2020-07-29T13:06:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T13:06:46","slug":"judiciary-blocks-nasrin-sotoudehs-bank-account-cutting-off-funds-for-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1636","title":{"rendered":"Judiciary Blocks Nasrin Sotoudeh\u2019s Bank Account, Cutting Off Funds for Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span> Husband of Imprisoned Human Rights Attorney Says Tactic Aimed at Silencing Family<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Reza Khandan: \u201cThey want to send a message to those who are willing to go to prison. What we have to say is we won\u2019t step back\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

July 29, 2020\u2014Broadening its assault on human rights defenders and their families, Iran\u2019s judiciary has blocked the bank account of imprisoned human rights lawyer\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh, her husband, Reza Khandan, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on July 27, 2020.CHRI condemns this blatant attempt to impose additional punishments on human rights defenders and their families beyond the already unlawful sentences applied in kangaroo courts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe authorities in Iran have seen that repeatedly imprisoning Nasrin Sotoudeh and other human rights defenders has not silenced demands for basic civil and political rights, so they are going after them extrajudicially to inflict additional pain on their families,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sotoudeh\u2019s account with Pasargard Bank in Tehran has been blocked since May 2020 on orders of the Tehran Prosecutor\u2019s Office, and efforts by Khandan and Sotoudeh\u2019s lawyer to regain control of the funds have failed, Khandan told CHRI.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 27, 2020, Sotoudeh\u2019s husband\u00a0wrote\u00a0on Facebook: \u201cWe believe the prosecutor\u2019s action is aimed at putting economic pressure and financially hurting the family in a time of crisis and economic collapse due to the incompetence and inadequacy of the government and ruling establishments. We will not stay silent in the face of such inhuman actions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with CHRI, Khandan explained: \u201cThe account was closed in May but I only recently found out about it. They didn\u2019t inform us. The bank didn\u2019t even send an SMS.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He noted that when he was in the Prosecutor\u2019s Office he grew suspicious: \u201cI noticed several confidential letters about Nasrin\u2026. One of the letters was about Nasrin\u2019s SIM card. I don\u2019t know what the other letters were about.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the authorities] aren\u2019t satisfied with the punishment imposed on Nasrin, especially when, despite their expectations, she had not been compliant after coming out of prison the last time.\u201d (Sotoudeh was imprisoned from 2010 to 2013, serving three years of a six-year sentence for her peaceful defense of human rights and her membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center. Upon her release, she resumed her defense of unlawfully prosecuted individuals and other rights-based legal work.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Khandan continued: \u201cThat\u2019s the indication in the Intelligence Ministry\u2019s letter of February 2018 [that I saw] in Nasrin\u2019s case file at the time of her latest arrest [in June 2018]. The letter stated that Nasrin had a previous conviction and was treated mercifully by the state but she refused to stop her actions against the state, therefore she should be arrested again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis behavior is a message to civil rights and political and human rights activists that if they do something, prison is the least they will be facing. The authorities think that prison has lost its effectiveness and dissidents are resuming their activities as soon as they get out of prison. They want to send a message to those who are willing to go to prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have to say is we won\u2019t step back. It won\u2019t have an impact on us. But a lot of other prisoners could be affected and their families could fall apart if their savings are confiscated.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0is currently behind bars at Evin Prison, sentenced to 38 years in prison, 12 years of which she must serve before becoming eligible for parole. Among her charges were \u201cencouraging prostitution\u201d for peacefully advocating against compulsory hijab and defending citizens\u2019 right to peaceful dissent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reza Khandan: \u201cThey want to send a message to those who are willing to go to prison. What we have to say is we won\u2019t step back\u201d July 29, 2020\u2014Broadening<\/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":[309,167,409],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-chri","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh","tag-reza-khandan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","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=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1637,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}