26 November 2012, Johannesburg: Global civil society network CIVICUS calls on the Government of Iran to immediately and unconditionally release Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Since 17 October 2012, Nasrin - who has defended human rights activists, prisoners of conscience and juveniles facing the death penalty - has been on a hunger strike in protest of the punitive measures imposed on her and members of her family by Iranian prison officials. According to latest reports, Nasrin’s health is rapidly deteriorating.
Over the last three months, authorities at the Evin Prison in Tehran have severely restricted face-to-face visits between Nasrin and members of her family. Government officials have also been persistently harassing Nasrin’s husband, Reza Khandan, and their 12-year-old daughter to pressure them to not publicise her case, including imposing a travel ban on them in July 2012.
Nasrin was initially arrested on 4 September 2010 and detained for about four months without any formal charges before she was subsequently charged with “acting against national security,” “propaganda against the regime” and being a “member of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders”. Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced her to 11 years in prison and informed her she was banned from practising Law and from leaving the country for 20 years. Her sentence was subsequently reduced to six years by an appeals court and the ban preventing her from practising as a lawyer reduced to 10 years.
“The violations against Nasrin are taking place in a context of rising restrictions on civil society in Iran, exacerbating an already extremely restrictive environment for civil society,” said Katsuji Imata, Acting Secretary General of CIVICUS. “The rising incidences of politically motivated trials in Iran are reducing the government’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to a farce.”
CIVICUS calls on the Government of Iran to immediately and unconditionally release Nasrin Sotoudeh and other human rights defenders imprisoned because of their work. It is vital that the Iranian authorities put in place mechanisms to prevent politically motivated trials from proceeding.