Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights activist in Iran, was imprisoned in 2019, then released in 2020 for health reasons. Several French lawyers are asking for the cancellation of his conviction.
She has been fighting for women’s rights in her country for more than twenty-five years. After being sentenced in 2019 to twelve years in prison and 148 lashes for “incitement to debauchery” in Iran, lawyer and activist Nasrin Sotoudeh was granted leave in 2020 for health reasons. She would be about to return there, a situation denounced by several French lawyers.
Julie Couturier, president of Paris, notably deplored in a tweet an unfair condemnation of the lawyer: “We protest against the imminent incarceration of our colleague Nasrin Sotoudeh, unjustly condemned and whose state of health is particularly worrying”.
“Nasrin Sotoudeh would be likely to be imprisoned again even though there is no improvement in his state of health,” said Jérôme Gavaudan, president of the Conseil national des barreaux.
Like other lawyers, they are calling for Nasrin Sotoudeh’s conviction to be quashed. The lawyer had been urgently hospitalized at the end of 2020 after a hunger strike lasting forty-five days.
Honorary citizen of Paris in 2019
In 2019, the city of Paris made Nasrin Sotoudeh its honorary citizen “for her fights for the abolition of the death penalty and for having defended activists for the rights of women and minorities”, reports a communicated.
In 2012, she also received the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament, which each year rewards people who dedicate their lives to the defense of human rights and fundamental freedoms.