“Nasrin Sotoudeh has been arrested to serve a five-year prison sentence”
Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh's husband, told Deutsche Welle that a trial was held in his wife's absence and that the court had sentenced her to five years in prison. Khandan believes this was just an excuse to imprison Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer and human rights activist, was arrested at her home on Wednesday, June 13, and transferred to Evin Prison.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, told DW that the officers who came to arrest her husband only had his arrest warrant with them and did not show him the court verdict that sentenced Sotoudeh to five years in prison.
Reza Khandan also says that the officers who went to his house to arrest his wife rang the doorbell of an elderly neighbor who has two young daughters and told him that they had come to propose, and that he opened the door, allowing the officers to enter the building and go to Nasrin Sotoudeh's apartment.
Mr. Khandan says that four years ago, during Nasrin Sotoudeh's sit-in in front of the Bar Association, he received a summons stating that he could not go to the prosecutor's office because he had just had surgery, and that Mr. Khandan went in his place and showed the medical documents.
A year after this incident, a written summons was sent to Ms. Sotoudeh and she went to the Revolutionary Court, but she was not allowed inside the court because, according to Mr. Khandan, some lawyers and well-known figures are banned from entering the Revolutionary Court.
Nasrin Sotoudeh returns home after arguing with officers in front of the Revolutionary Court about why she was summoned but not allowed inside. Now, three years later, she has been told that the court was convened without her presence and has sentenced her to five years in prison.
Reza Khandan, of course, believes that the judiciary's method is to always "soak" the case files of civil and political activists in salt water, so to speak, until these individuals cause trouble and inconvenience to the government and the judiciary, and then put them in prison.
Nasrin Sotoudeh recently gave several interviews and wrote articles in protest against the list established by the judiciary for lawyers who are allowed to defend political and security defendants.
Ms. Sotoudeh was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2010 on charges of “propaganda against the regime.” This sentence was later reduced to six years. She was released from prison in 2013 and was reinstated as a lawyer in 2014.
Source: DW
