March 8 This Year: Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Thousandth Day in Prison
March 8 this year coincides with International Women’s Day and marks the thousandth day of imprisonment for Nasrin Sotoudeh, a jailed human rights lawyer. On this occasion, various programs have been organized by civil society organizations and human rights associations.
Beyond her legal activities for women, in the latest case filed against her, Nasrin Sotoudeh has been accused of defending two of the “Girls of Revolution Street,” young women who removed their headscarves on the street in protest against the mandatory hijab law and were arrested for doing so. This coincidence has made the thousandth day of Nasrin Sotoudeh’s imprisonment more meaningful alongside International Women’s Day.
The International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) in Germany has issued a statement on this occasion calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Martin Lessenthin, spokesperson for this human rights organization, said: “March 8, 2021 is a sad day for human rights. Every day Nasrin Sotoudeh spends in prison, the Iranian government becomes more guilty before its people.”
Lessenthin pointed to multiple cases of human rights activists whose legal representation Sotoudeh has undertaken, describing her as someone who “has always stood beside the victims of the regime’s repression.” According to this German human rights activist, Nasrin Sotoudeh “defended women who wanted to make their own decisions about their lives and children who had been sentenced to death.”
In 2009, when Nasrin Sotoudeh was representing Arash Rahmani-pour and Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani, she told Deutsche Welle Farsi: “When I cannot do anything for my clients, I prefer to be executed with them.”
Arash Rahmani-pour and Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani were executed for organizing unrest following the 2009 elections, despite both having been arrested two months before the elections. Rahmani-pour was 17 years old at the time the alleged crimes occurred.
Programs for Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Thousandth Day in Prison
Amnesty International USA and Canada, along with The Global Justice Center and the Feminist Majority Foundation, have organized a virtual program for March 8 coinciding with the thousandth day of Nasrin Sotoudeh’s imprisonment.
Participating in this program are Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, and Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker under house arrest in Iran. Jeff Kaufman, director, and Marcia Ross, producer of the documentary film “Nasrin,” will also speak at this program.
The human rights organization Front Line Defenders has also organized a virtual panel discussion on March 9 in which Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, Mahdieh Golroo, women’s rights activist, Razvaneh Mohammadi, LGBTQ rights activist, and Roja Fazaeli, professor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, are participating.
The documentary “Nasrin” will be screened at this virtual program with the presence of its creators.
Prison Behind Prison
Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes on political charges such as “acting against national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” Twelve years of this sentence are enforceable, and this human rights activist has been serving this sentence in prison since June 2018.
She was also arrested in 2010 and sentenced by the primary court to 11 years in prison, 20 years of disbarment from practicing law, and 20 years of travel ban from the country, but was released in 2013.
Sotoudeh was last arrested on June 13, 2018. During her detention periods, she has gone on hunger strike several times. Nasrin Sotoudeh is currently imprisoned in Qarchak Prison in Varamin.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, says that despite human rights conditions in Iran worsening day by day, due to the widespread protests against the imprisonment of human rights activists, particularly Nasrin Sotoudeh, he is hopeful that his wife will be released before the end of her sentence.
Khandan told Deutsche Welle: “In fact, the judiciary is trying to prevent pressure from mounting by occasionally granting leave. For this reason, I am certain that if international and public pressure increases, Iran’s security and judicial systems will not be able to keep Nasrin in prison and will be forced to release her in the future.”
Due to her human rights activities, Nasrin Sotoudeh has received numerous international awards, including the Sakharov Human Rights Prize from the European Parliament in 2012, the Special Human Rights Award from the German Judges Association in 2020, and the Right Livelihood Award in the same year.
Source: DW
