: Political Prisoners Remain Behind Bars as COVID-19 Surges in Iran. This Activist Is Risking Her Life to Get Them Out #WorldNEWS It was the acclaimed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh whom
Political Prisoners Remain Behind Bars as COVID-19 Surges in Iran. This Activist Is Risking Her Life to Get Them Out #WorldNEWS
It was the acclaimed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh whom activist Shaparak Shajarizadeh credits with saving her life. Detained in February 2018 for taking part in the White Wednesday civil disobedience movement against Iran’s mandatory veiling law, Shajarizadeh was placed in solitary confinement while Iranian authorities denied her access to her lawyer. Released, briefly detained again the next month, and again in May while on holiday with her son, she began a hunger strike, initially refusing water. “Nasrin came to prison and told me if you want to go on a hunger strike, that’s okay, but drink water,” Shajarizadeh tells TIME from Toronto, where she has lived in exile since September 2018.
A veteran of the 40-year-long fight for women’s rights in Iran, Sotoudeh offered more than just reassurance. Her advocacy focussed international attention on the cases of activists detained for protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law. It was thanks to Sotoudeh’s work as an attorney that Shajarizadeh was released on bail in May 2018. By the time an Iranian court handed down an in absentia prison sentence of 20 years, Shajarizadeh had already left the country with her young son. “Nasrin was a pillar for us women at that time,” Shajarizadeh says. “She would talk to the media about our cases; she made sure the world was watching. ”
Two years on, Sotoudeh is the one risking her life in a hunger strike, while Shajarizadeh is trying to make sure the world pays attention. Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018 on ambiguous charges connected to her work as an attorney, not long after defending Shajarizadeh and other activists. She has since been incarcerated at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, joining other activists and intellectuals behind bars.
This is the second time in less than six months that Sotoudeh has gone on a hunger strike to demand the release of Iran’s political detainees during the global pandemic. She has once again “put her life on the line for imprisoned journalists, women’s rights defenders, juveniles, lawyers, religious minorities and environmentalists,” says Canada’s former justice minister Irwin Cotler, Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) and part of the legal team representing Sotoudeh internationally, “Her courage and commitment are unwavering. ”
Iran is currently battling a surge in COVID-19 cases, and while Iranian officials said the country had released around 100,000 prisoners earlier this year, most political prisoners remain behind bars. (The virus can be transmitted easily in prisons and the U.
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