Urgent call for global solidarity with the campaign to free Nasrin Sotoudeh, as this human rights lawyer enters her fifth week of hunger strike in Iran
A group of internationally renowned artists and writers have joined an online campaign to protest the continued imprisonment of human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh by publishing a public call and demanding her immediate release from prison.
Olivia Colman, Shohreh Aghdashloo, J.K. Simmons, Shirin Neshat, Juliette Stevenson, Nazanin Bonadi, Nina Ansari, Azar Nafisi, Simone Rix, and Maz Jobrani are among the artists and writers who, by posting their photos with the hashtag #FreeNasrin, declared their solidarity and unity in defense of the rights of Nasrin Sotoudeh and many other political prisoners in Iran.
This call calls on people around the world to be the voice of Nasrin Sotoudeh's rights worldwide by joining this popular online protest and posting their pictures with the hashtag #FreeNasrin on their user accounts.
Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman, who recently narrated a documentary about the women's movement and Nasrin Sotoudeh's life called " Nasrin ," said of the online protest campaign: "I am proud to stand with Nasrin like this and demand her freedom. Nasrin has risked everything to achieve justice in Iran."
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, emphasized the need to join this protest campaign and said: "Nasrin Sotoudeh has sacrificed her freedom to defend the rights of others and has been deprived of living with her husband and two children for years. We must all unite and demand Nasrin Sotoudeh's release from prison."
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison, is serving a 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 unjustly imprisoned.
Prisoners who are at serious risk of contracting the coronavirus due to the lack of proper sanitary conditions in prisons since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran.
Although only a portion of political prisoners in Iran have been tested for the coronavirus, a number of political prisoners have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus, and yet almost none of those infected have received proper medical care.
This spring, after the coronavirus outbreak intensified in Iran, the Islamic Republic's judiciary authorities decided to release or grant leave to a large number of prisoners in order to prevent a pandemic crisis in prisons. However, only a small number of political prisoners were among those released or granted leave due to the coronavirus outbreak.
According to a ruling by judicial authorities in Iran, Nasrin Sotoudeh will be released on parole after serving 12 years of her 38-year prison sentence. The 12-year sentence was issued against Nasrin Sotoudeh on charges of “encouraging corruption and prostitution and providing the conditions for it.”
Recently, the German Association of Judges, the largest association of judges and prosecutors in Germany, awarded its Human Rights Award to Nasrin Sotoudeh, calling the human rights lawyer a symbol of the civil rights movement in Iran.
Sotoudeh also received the prestigious Sakharov Prize from the European Union in 2012 for her human rights activities.
The greater participation of citizens around the world in this online protest campaign to accelerate the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh and protest the situation of political prisoners in Iran will cause citizens in other countries around the world to ask their elected representatives to ask the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran for an explanation in international forums about the situation of Nasrin Sotoudeh and other political prisoners, and to demand the release of this human rights lawyer and other political prisoners.
Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign
