Urgent Call to Declare Global Solidarity with Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Freedom Campaign Coinciding with Fifth Week of Human Rights Lawyer’s Hunger Strike in Iran
A group of renowned international artists and writers has joined an online internet campaign protesting the continued imprisonment of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer, by publishing a public call and demanding her immediate release from prison.
Olivia Colman, Sheila Vand, J.K. Simmons, Shirin Neshat, Juliet Stevenson, Nazanin Boniadi, Nina Ansari, Azar Nafisi, Simon Reeks, and Maz Jobrani are among the artists and writers who declared their solidarity and unity in defense of Nasrin Sotoudeh’s rights and many other political prisoners in Iran by posting their photos with the hashtag #FreeNasrin.
This call urges people around the world to join this online popular protest and share their images with the hashtag #FreeNasrin on their social media accounts, making Nasrin Sotoudeh’s voice heard for justice across the globe.
Olivia Colman, the Academy Award-winning actress who recently collaborated as a narrator in the documentary film about the women’s movement and Nasrin Sotoudeh’s life titled “Nasrin,” commented on this online protest campaign: “I am proud to stand with Nasrin in this way and to call for her freedom. Nasrin has risked everything to achieve justice in Iran.”
Hadi Ghaeimi, director of the Iran Human Rights Campaign, emphasizing the necessity of joining this protest campaign, stated: “Nasrin Sotoudeh has sacrificed her freedom in defense of others’ rights and has been deprived of living with her husband and two children for years. We all must unite and demand Nasrin Sotoudeh’s release from prison.”
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, is serving her 38-year sentence. The human rights lawyer began a hunger strike in prison four weeks ago. An action aimed at making the voices of political prisoners in Iran heard and drawing the attention of judicial authorities to the unjust conditions of those wrongfully imprisoned.
Prisoners who, since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran, are seriously at risk of contracting the coronavirus virus in the absence of proper sanitary conditions in prisons.
Although only some of the political prisoners in Iran have been tested for coronavirus, some political prisoners have been confirmed to have contracted the virus, yet almost none of those infected have received proper medical care.
This spring, following the intensification of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic decided to release or grant leave to a large number of the country’s prisoners to prevent a pandemic crisis in prisons. Among them, only a small number of political prisoners were among those released or granted leave due to the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the ruling of Iran’s judicial authorities, Nasrin Sotoudeh will be conditionally released after serving 12 years of her 38-year sentence. This 12-year prison sentence was issued against Nasrin Sotoudeh on the charge of “promoting corruption and obscenity and providing the means for it.”
Recently, the “German Judges Association,” Germany’s largest association of judges and prosecutors, awarded its human rights prize to Nasrin Sotoudeh and called this human rights lawyer a symbol of the civil rights movement in Iran.
Sotoudeh also received the prestigious “Sakharov” award from the European Union in 2012 for her human rights activities.
The participation of as many citizens as possible from around the world in this online protest campaign to accelerate Nasrin Sotoudeh’s release and protest the situation of political prisoners in Iran will cause citizens of other countries to request their elected representatives to demand clarification from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s authorities in international bodies regarding Nasrin Sotoudeh’s situation and other political prisoners, and to call for the freedom of this human rights lawyer and other political prisoners.
Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign
