Two human rights organizations: The Iranian government considers seeking justice a crime
Two human rights organizations say that the Iranian government's cruel sentence against Nasrin Sotoudeh demonstrates that it considers peaceful activism for truth and justice a crime. She has been sentenced to a long prison term simply for performing her legal duty.
Human Rights Watch and the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called on the Iranian government to “immediately and unconditionally release Sotoudeh and other human rights defenders who are spending Nowruz behind bars.”
Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, announced on March 11, 2019 that judicial authorities had officially informed him that 33 years in prison and 148 lashes had been added to Sotoudeh’s current five-year sentence. According to Khandan, under Iranian criminal law, if this news is confirmed, Sotoudeh would have to serve 12 years in prison.
Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said in response to the verdict: “Nasrin Sotoudeh joins a large group of activists in Iranian prisons who are in prison solely for their peaceful activism.”
He added that Iran's judicial authorities "violate even the most minimal standards of law and justice."
According to human rights groups, the Iranian government criminalizes “freedom of expression and peaceful assembly” and sentences defenders of these basic rights to prison.
Ms. Sotoudeh's charges are a set of general security crimes, such as "gathering and colluding with the intention of committing a crime against national security," "propaganda activity against the system," and opposition to compulsory hijab and legal defense of those who have been unjustly arrested.
Khandan told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that Nasrin Sotoudeh was tried in absentia on December 30 in Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh. Ms. Sotoudeh refused to appear in court because she was not given the right to choose a lawyer and she wanted to protest the unfair judicial process.
On March 11, Moghiseh told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) that his court had sentenced Sotoudeh to five years in prison on charges of “gathering and colluding against the regime” and two years in prison on charges of “insulting the leadership.”
Security agents arrested Nasrin Sotoudeh on June 13, 2018, after she was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison on September 3, 2016. Shortly before that, she had taken on the legal defense of a woman who had removed her hijab in the street.
According to Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, dozens of human rights defenders, including Narges Mohammadi, Atena Daemi, Arash Sadeghi, Golrokh Iraei, Esmaeil Abdi, Mohammad Habibi, and others, are currently behind bars simply for peacefully defending human rights principles.
Source: DW
