Nasrin Sotoudeh

Nasrin Sotoudeh

Biography

Nasrin Sotoudeh is among Iran’s most senior human rights attorneys. As the U.S. Institute of Peace notes, she has represented “women’s rights activists, victims of domestic abuse, minors on death row, journalists and Kurdish rights activists.” Prominent clients of hers include Nobel Prize winner and prominent human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi and Narges Hosseini, the latter of whom has protested mandatory head covering.

Sotoudeh co-founded the Campaign for Step-by-Step Abolition of the Death Penalty (LEGAM) in 2013, and was an involved member of the Iranian Women’s Coalition.

Detentions and Trials

The regime arrested Sotoudeh in September 2010. At the time, she was representing relatives of protesters killed by the authorities. She was charged with “acting against national security” and “propaganda against the system.” She was sentenced to 11 years in prison (later reduced to six years after international outrage), but released in 2013.

In June 2018, after publicly criticizing the requirement for those charged with security crimes to select their lawyers from a regime-approved list, Sotoudeh was arrested once more. Before she was even tried and before her family was even informed of the charges against her, she was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Sotoudeh’s lawyer stated in August 2018 that the five-year sentence had been issued pursuant to an “espionage in hiding” charge that had been brought in absentia in 2015. She was subsequently charged with membership in LEGAM and other human rights groups and with “encouraging people to corruption and prostitution,” which may have stemmed from her representation of Narges Hosseini.

Sotoudeh refused to show up to her 2018 trial in protest of the regime’s refusal to let her select her own legal counsel. In March 2019, she was convicted and sentenced to an additional 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh refused to appeal on principle, as she did not accept the legitimacy of the verdict or Iran’s system of justice.

Treatment in Captivity

Sotoudeh was held in Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin Prison.

Hunger Strike

In the spring of 2020, Sotoudeh began a hunger strike to seek the release of political prisoners in light of COVID-19’s rapid spread through Iran’s prison system.

In September 2020, Sotoudeh was hospitalized with cardiac and respiratory problems. Her daughter, Mehraveh Khandan, said, “The security authorities have done everything to her with the aim of creating one of the most inhuman conditions in the hospital, to isolate her from the outside World, to prevent any contact so that she can submit to the will of the security guards.”

Notwithstanding her medical problems, the authorities returned Sotoudeh to Evin on September 23, 2020. She ended her hunger strike three days later but her health worsened, with her husband, Reza Khandan, claiming that she was brought back to prison as “a deliberate attempt to put her life in danger.” Contrary to assurances from the prison authorities that Sotoudeh would be hospitalized again, instead she was transferred to the Qarchak women’s prison, which has been sanctioned by the United States and European Union for human rights abuses.

Sotoudeh was furloughed on November 7, 2020, and tested positive for COVID-19 during a doctor’s visit. She was returned to Gharchak Prison on December 2, 2020.

Medical Leave

The regime permitted Sotoudeh to go on a five-day furlough from prison in July 2021 to seek medical treatment. She remains on leave as of early 2023.

Retaliation against Family

In September 2018, Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, was arrested and held for three months after criticizing Iranian human rights abuses on Facebook, including the jailing of human rights activists. In January 2019, the Iranian judiciary sentenced Khandan to six years’ imprisonment for “conspiring against national security” and “propaganda against the system.” According to Khandan’s lawyer, Khandan was also “banned for two years from leaving the country, any activity in social media or newspapers, and membership in political groups.”

Agents of Iran’s judiciary and ministry of intelligence stormed Sotoudeh’s house in August 2020 and arrested her daughter, charging her with “insult and assault.” Sotoudeh’s husband stated that the arrest resulted from a dispute between his daughter and a prison guard in 2019.

In May 2020, the Iranian judiciary froze Sotoudeh’s bank account. In response, Sotoudeh’s husband posted the following on Facebook: “We believe the prosecutor’s action is aimed at putting economic pressure and financially hurting the family in a time of crisis and economic collapse due to the incompetence and inadequacy of the government and ruling establishments. We will not stay silent in the face of such inhuman actions.”

Award

Sotoudeh was awarded the 2018 Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Award.