Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran.
27 Facts About Nasrin Sotoudeh
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Nasrin Sotoudeh has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh's clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh has represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh is still in Qarchak Prison as of July 2021.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh was born in 1963 in a "religious, middle-class" Iranian family.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh had hoped to study philosophy in college and ranked 53rd in the Iranian national university entrance exam but lacked high enough marks to get a place and ended up studying law at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh has emphasized that Reza is "truly a modern man," standing beside her and her work during her struggles.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh started her career at the Iranian Ministry of Housing legal office and, after two years, joined the legal section of the state-owned Bank Tejarat.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh's "first work in the field of women's rights" was a diverse collection of interviews, reports, and articles for the journal Daricheh.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh's work has included defending abused children and mothers and working to protect abused children from returning to their abusive fathers.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh believes many abusers are ill or past victims of mistreatment and need professional care and medication.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh worked closely with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and her Defenders of Human Rights Center.
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At the time, Nasrin Sotoudeh was representing Zahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian dual citizen charged with security offenses; it was unclear whether the raid was related to Bahrami.
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The US condemned what it called the "unjust and harsh verdict" against Nasrin Sotoudeh, and called her "a strong voice for rule of law and justice in Iran".
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On 26 October 2012, Nasrin Sotoudeh was announced as a co-winner of the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh shared the award with Iranian film director Jafar Panahi.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh was released on 18 September 2013 along with ten other political prisoners, including opposition leader Mohsen Aminzadeh, days before an address by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the United Nations.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh was given a five-year imprisonment for "acting against national security".
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Nasrin Sotoudeh was charged with several offenses, including being a member of a human rights organization and stoking "corruption and prostitution".
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On 20 October 2020, Nasrin Sotoudeh was transferred from Evin Prison to Qarchak Prison in Varamin.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh ended her hunger strike on Sept 26 due to deteriorating health.
23.
Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty said: "Jailing a human rights defender for her peaceful activities is abhorrent but the fact that the judge in Nasrin Sotoudeh's case used his discretion to ensure that she stays locked up for more than is required under Iranian law compounds the outrageous injustice of her sentence".
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Boniadi said that Nasrin Sotoudeh should be lauded and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and spoke of the bad reputation of the prison, where people were regularly tortured.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh spoke of the lack of support worldwide for the ordinary people of Iran.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh makes an appearance in filmmaker Jafar Panahi's Taxi, when she sits in Panahi's car on her way to visit an imprisoned client.
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Nasrin Sotoudeh is portrayed in the 2020 film Nasrin, which focuses on her professional and personal life leading up to her second arrest in 2018.