Jailed for 11 years for challenging state abuses

The Irish Times, NASRIN SOTOUDEH is one of Iran’s best-known human rights lawyers. Her past clients include juvenile offenders facing the death penalty, victims of domestic violence and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. She also defended men and women whose only crime was to participate in peaceful protests following the disputed Iranian presidential election in 2009.

The Iranian government is determined to silence all opposition. Detainees have been held incommunicado for days, weeks or even months while relatives are unable to find out where they are being held, or on what charges.

The secrecy surrounding these arrests makes it easier for interrogators to resort to torture, including rape, and mock executions, to extract forced “confessions” which are used later as evidence in trial.

These are the people that Nasrin stood up for, the human rights abuses that she challenged, and that is why this 45 year-old mother of two young children was sentenced to 11 years in prison earlier this month.

She was warned. She received threats from the Iranian authorities telling her to stop her work on behalf of her clients. They told her she could face reprisals if she continued to speak up, but she refused to be intimidated.

Nasrin was arrested on September 4th after her home and offices were searched. She was taken to Evin prison in Tehran, a place notorious for the torture, rape and execution of prisoners. There she was held in solitary confinement, allowed only very limited contact with her family and her lawyer.

Twice, Nasrin went on hunger strike to protest her innocence, at one stage refusing water as well, only to come off her protest after the intervention of her family.

The effects of her imprisonment and the hunger strikes have seriously damaged her health. When her husband was last allowed to see her at the start of the month, she was physically very weak.

As well as her 11-year prison sentence, Nasrin was also banned from practising as a lawyer, or leaving the country, for the next 20 years. And this is what the Iranian authorities are afraid of. It fears human rights activists such as Nasrin Sotoudeh who refuse to back down in the face of threats and harassment, who stand up for human rights in Iran.

Now Nasrin needs your help. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Amnesty International. To mark this, in association with The Irish Times, over each of the coming 12 months we will profile a prisoner of conscience, someone held in prison solely for their work in support of human rights. And we will ask you to join us in working for their release.

Despite the image it likes to portray publicly, the Iranian government is not immune to international pressure. Prisoners have been released, conditions of detention eased, executions postponed or abandoned because enough people like you decided it is not just enough to read about human rights abuses, you must act.

Please write now calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Nasrin Sotoudeh to

His Excellency, the Iranian ambassador to Ireland:

Mr Hossein Panahiazar, Embassy of Iran, 72 Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Or log on to www.amnesty.ie, and take action online.