“I realize they had arrested me for my work on human rights, the defense of women’s rights activists, and the fight against the death penalty. Still, I will not be silenced.”
With this courageous cri de coeur, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh launched her hunger strike. Imprisoned yet again in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, Sotoudeh is both the embodiment of the struggle for human rights in Iran, as well as the symbol of the Iranian regime’s massive domestic repression.
She represents—both legally and figuratively—the hundreds of Iranian citizens imprisoned and imperiled, tortured and tormented, for nothing other than exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and human dignity.
Even among the remarkable individuals who have dared to confront the Iranian regime, Sotoudeh stands out for her courage and commitment. “Nasrin is fearless in taking on tough cases that other lawyers would carefully avoid,” said Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who is herself one of Ms. Sotoudeh’s former clients.
Sotoudeh’s advocacy has included being a leader in the struggle for women’s rights amid the persistent and pervasive assault against women, most recently serving as lawyer to Iranian women imprisoned for protesting against the compulsory hijab; a leader in the struggle against child executions, where Iran has executed more minors per capita than any other country in the world; a valued defender of journalists and bloggers at a time when Iran continues to jail journalists with an alarming alacrity; and a lawyer to other Iranian lawyers who became political prisoners, until becoming one herself.
Nasrin had first been arbitrarily arrested in 2010 on the charges of “spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security,” which effectively amounted to defending opposition protesters in the Green Movement. She was released in 2013, following international pressure, after having served half of a six-year jail sentence, but remained banned from leaving Iran until 2022. Her more recent targeting began on June 13, when she was told that she had been found guilty, in absentia, of vague national security charges, though no evidence was offered then or since for the charges.
Sotoudeh’s family and friends have also been persecuted and prosecuted simply for speaking out against her unjust imprisonment. Her husband Reza Khandan was arrested on September 4, when agents of the Islamic regime burst into his home early in the morning and hauled him to Evin prison. This followed an earlier illegal raid, where authorities broke into his apartment (and his sister’s home) seizing pins with slogans like, “I am against the forced veil,” which her husband had feared would be used as evidence to substantiate false allegations against Sotoudeh. The regime also arrested Sotoudeh’s friend, human rights activist Farhad Meysami, who is also now on a hunger strike.
While Sotoudeh is singular in her compassion and commitment to the Iranian people—and the universal human rights principles that underpin their struggle for freedom—she is not alone in being unjustly imprisoned. Indeed, as I write, members of the peaceful Baha’i minority community continue to be targeted under an apartheid-like program of systematic oppression. Leading Shiite cleric and freedom of religion advocate Ayatollah Boroujerdi was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in 2006 and is now being denied urgent medical care under house arrest, a form of passive execution; Canadian permanent resident Saeed Malekpour was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for merely developing a photo-sharing internet software; and educational leader Mahmoud Beheshti is now serving two separate sentences on false security charges.
Of additional concern is the fate of Maryam Mombeini, the Iranian-Canadian wife of Kavous Seyed-Emami, a prominent Iranian-Canadian environmentalist, detained under false espionage charges related to his environmental work and who died under suspicious circumstances while being held in Evin prison. Since the death of her husband, Mombeini herself has been the target of the regime, which has engaged in a relentless campaign of intimidation intended to secure a false confession of espionage. In blatant violation of both domestic and international law, Mombeini has been prevented from leaving Iran to join her two adult sons now living in Canada.
Each of the above prisoners has been adopted by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, for which I serve as chair, as part of the International Political Prisoner Advocacy Project and includes express reference to Iranian political prisoners.
There is a pattern of persecution and prosecution endured by these political prisoners, including the criminalization of innocence, where people are imprisoned not for what they do but for who they are. This is reminiscent of the old Soviet dictum, “give us the prisoner and we will find the crime.”
Their cases are a window into the clerical regime’s persistent and pervasive perversions of justice and purveying of injustice, including the pattern of arbitrary arrest and detention; the criminalization of fundamental freedoms of expression and belief; the torture in detention; the assault on the fundamental legal rights of these legal prisoners; the unlawful convictions on false and fantastical charges; and the patterns of intimidation, harassment, abuse and imprisonment of family members.
Ultimately, it is our responsibility to stand with Nasrin Sotoudeh and the political prisoners and people of Iran, to champion their case and cause, to let them know the world is watching, and that they are not alone—that we will not relent until they are free.
