Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer, writer, and activist, was abruptly re-detained on October 29, 2023, after being arrested and brutally beaten by authorities after attending the funeral of slain Iranian teenager Armita Geravand without a hijab. She was reportedly transferred to Qarchak Prison following her arrest. Sotoudeh had been conditionally released from serving a decades-long prison term on a medical furlough since mid-2021, though had been disbarred and therefore banned from continuing her legal work.
PEN America Advocacy
October 29 and November 2, 2023: PEN America condemns Sotoudeh’s arrest at the funeral of Armita Geravand and expresses alarm about her health and safety after new details emerge regarding the injuries she sustained during the assault and arrest.
February 14, 2023: PEN America strongly condemns the summons issued by the Iranian authorities to Reza Khandan, Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, to report to jail and serve a 2019 prison sentence. In a powerful statement, PEN denounces this effort to intimidate Sotoudeh and called for the immediate review of this decision.
May 27, 2021: PEN America—in collaboration with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the makers of the documentary film Nasrin—present “#FreeNasrinandLoujain: Virtual Reading of Women Writers at Risk around the World,” featuring writing by Nasrin Sotoudeh and five other women writer-activists. Their works are read by emerging women’s rights activists.
February 23, 2021: PEN America publishes a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on behalf of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who remains imprisoned. In her letter, Sotoudeh protests the unjust executions of religious and ethnic minority members in Iran and asks the United Nations and the international community to take action against this system.
December 21, 2020: PEN America co-hosts a virtual event with Ms. Magazine to mark the theatrical release of the documentary film NASRIN. Introduced by Karin Deutsch Karlekar of PEN America and moderated by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the event focused on Iranian women’s movements and Nasrin Sotoudeh’s activism, as discussed by panelists human rights advocate Kerry Kennedy, Iranian artist and activist Parastou Forouhar, and NASRIN filmmakers Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross. Statements of solidarity from writer Margaret Atwood and Ms. Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan rounded out the program.
December 2, 2020: PEN America releases a joint open letter with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and the Center for Human Rights in Iran to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to quash the unjust conviction and sentence against Sotoudeh, as well as the pending sentence against her husband, Reza Khandan.
September 2020: PEN America calls for the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh in a widely-circulated public petition after she began her hunger strike on August 11 to protest Iranian prison conditions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 11, 2019: PEN releases a statement as she is sentenced to a combined 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. In the statement, PEN calls on the Iranian government to uphold the due process rights of human rights activists, to clarify the exact terms of this horrific verdict, and to immediately and unconditionally exonerate and release Nasrin Sotoudeh.
March 6, 2019: Upon the news alleging that Sotoudeh is sentenced to 34 years in prison and 148 lashes based on unspecified charges, PEN America releases a statement, describing Sotoudeh’s alleged conviction as a “grave miscarriage of justice.”
June 18, 2018: PEN America calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the Iranian human rights lawyer, as she was arrested and detained on June 13 at her home in Tehran, where she was informed she would be serving a five-year sentence after being convicted in absentia.
October 20, 2014: PEN expresses concern over the news that Sotoudeh is once again barred from practicing law for three years, insisting that she be returned her legally granted license to practice law.
April 18, 2014: PEN America revisits Nasrin Sotoudeh’s case as part of its ‘Freedom to Write Retrospective.’ In a blog post, PEN explains the instances in which she was arrested or targeted by the Iranian government, at the same time drawing attention to her human rights work.
March 7, 2014: PEN America expresses support for women at risk who bravely fight for free expression, including Nasrin Sotoudeh, at the eve of International Women’s Day.
September 18, 2013: PEN America welcomes the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh. She had been serving a six-year sentence in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison on anti-state charges for comments she gave the media in defense of her clients.
January 22, 2013: PEN America calls for the release of Sotoudeh upon her return to Even Prison after a three day furlough. PEN America welcomed her temporary release on January 17, 2013 when she was temporarily released.
October 25, 2012: PEN America joins PEN International expressing concern for the health of the writer, journalist and lawyer Sotoudeh and calls for her immediate and unconditional release.
April 30, 2011: PEN America honors Sotoudeh with the 2011 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
CASE BACKGROUND
Nasrin Sotoudeh is well-known for taking on high-profile political cases. She began her activism in 1991 as the only female writer for the nationalist-religious publication Daricheh Goftegoo; one of her first projects was to prepare a series of interviews, reports, and articles on Iranian women to mark International Women’s Day, all of which her editor refused to run. After completing her Master’s Degree in International Law at Shahid Beheshti University, Sotoudeh passed the bar exam in 1995 but was not permitted to practice law for another eight years. She concentrated on journalism instead, writing for several reformist newspapers, including Jame’e.
She has also boldly defended prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed while they were under 18. Sotoudeh has recently worked as a defense attorney for women charged with violating Iran’s compulsory veiling law. During an outbreak of protests in December 2017 and January 2018, a number of women participating in the Girls of Revolution Street Protest were arrested for removing their headscarves in public to demonstrate against the mandatory dress code. Article 638 of Iran’s penal code mandates that women who appear in public places or roads without wearing the hijab will be sentenced to prison time, corporal punishment, or fines.
In addition to defending women who were arrested for protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law, Sotoudeh is also known for her criticism of the judiciary’s decision to force detainees facing politically motivated charges to choose their counsel from a list of lawyers approved by the judiciary. She criticized the new amendment, indicating that it ‘not only undermines due process rights, it also undermines lawyers’ independence.’
Sotoudeh was re-arrested in June 2018, shortly after her legal support and advocacy for women who were facing charges for peacefully protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law, including criticism of Iranian judicial procedures limiting defendants’ access to a lawyer in security-related cases. The charges against her were initially unclear, though later revealed to be for “propaganda against the state and assembly and collusion to act against national security.” In March 2019, Sotoudeh was convicted of several national security-related offenses in absentia, totaling a sentence of 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Her husband clarified later that in accordance with Iranian law, Sotoudeh will only serve the longest sentence for one of the convictions against her, which is 10 years. Sotoudeh has been granted medical furlough multiple times since she entered prison, most recently in July 2021, and has remained at home since then, as her 46-day hunger strike—which ended on September 24, 2020 due to her severely deteriorating condition–is still impacting her health.
Sotoudeh is the winner of the 2011 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and a co-winner of the European Parliament’s 2012 Sakharov Prize, as well as more recently the 2023 Brown Democracy Medal and the Train Foundation’s 2023 Civil Courage Prize.
CASE UPDATES
October 31, 2023: Sotoudeh’s husband speaks to her and reveals new details about the violent conditions of her arrest. She was severely beaten at the funeral (her glasses were broken, and she has swelling to the back of her head as well as bruises on her body) and was denied the standard legal process as she refused to wear a hijab to the proceedings. She ends her brief hunger strike.
October 30, 2023: Sotoudeh is reportedly refusing food and medication in prison. Her husband reported that she was not permitted visitors.
October 29, 2023: Sotoudeh is arrested after attending the funeral of Armita Geravand without a hijab. She was taken to the police station and then transferred to Qarchak Prison.
March 15, 2023: It is announced that Sotoudeh will receive the Brown Democracy Medal from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy.
February 21, 2023: The International Bar Association makes a statement condemning Reza Khandan’s summoning.
March 17, 2021: Authorities release Sotoudeh from prison on a two-week leave to celebrate the Iranian New Year (Nowruz), but she is returned to prison at the end of her permit.
January 20, 2021: Sotoudeh is abruptly forced to return to Qarchak prison after undergoing an angioplasty. In a continued pattern of harassment, the authorities freeze her family’s bank accounts.
January 8, 2021: Nasrin is granted a three-day medical furlough in order to continue her treatment, as was previously advised by medical professionals.
December 2, 2020: Iranian authorities order Sotoudeh to return to Qarchak prison, against the advice of a medical professional and despite her contraction of COVID-19 after coming into contact with prison guards afflicted with the virus. A medical professional recommended instead that Sotoudeh, recovering from the physical toll of a 46-day hunger strike and the contraction of COVID-19, remain on medical furlough for another two weeks.
November 7, 2020: Iran’s judiciary news website Mizan announces that Sotoudeh is released on medical furlough “with the approval of the prosecutor presiding over women’s prison.” Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan confirms on Twitter that Sotoudeh had been conditionally released.
October 20, 2020: Judiciary officials in Iran transfer Nasrin Sotoudeh to Qarchak prison, described as “Iran’s most dangerous for women,” instead of the hospital, where officers at Evin prison claimed they were taking her. Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband discloses in a tweet that specialists had recommended she undergo a heart examination and angiography.
October 1, 2020: The Right to Livelihood Foundation honors Nasrin Sotoudeh with the Right to Livelihood Award. Sotoudeh is honored “for her fearless activism, at great personal risk, to promote political freedoms and human rights in Iran.”
September 25, 2020: Sotoudeh ends her hunger strike due to her severely deteriorating health. Sotoudeh went 46 days without food, 5 of which she spent in the cardiac care unit of Taleghani hospital, to protest the continued detention of political prisoners in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, relays her announcement via Twitter the following day.
September 23, 2020: Authorities return Sotoudeh to Evin prison without further medical care, after several days in the cardiac care unit in Taleghani hospital. Interviewed by AFP, husband Reza Khandan expresses concern for her lack of medical care in prison, saying, “Because of her heart problems, I expected them to at least refer her to the prison clinic, especially after 44 days on hunger strike.”
September 20, 2020: More than 40 days into her hunger strike, Nasrin Sotoudeh is hospitalized and taken to the cardiac care unit of Taleghani hospital in Tehran. The prison reportedly did not notify Sotoudeh’s family about her hospitalization; a fellow inmate notified them. Husband Reza Khandan told AFP, “We were allowed to see her for a few moments,” and added that “She was severely weakened, lost a lot of weight and had sunken eyes.”
August 17, 2020: State security forces arrest Sotoudeh’s 20-year-old daughter and take her to Evin Security Court on charges that she had assaulted a female officer during prior visitation at Evin Prison. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, believes the arrest is another intimidation tactic in a series used against Sotoudeh’s family in retaliation for her public advocacy. Sotoudeh’s daughter is subsequently released on bail.
August 11, 2020: Nasrin begins a hunger strike in protest of the unjust living conditions in Tehran’s Evin Prison, where COVID-19 has spread, in continued detention of prisoners eligible for release. In a letter written by Sotoudeh, she calls for rightful legal recourse to appeal imprisonments and the release of political prisoners.
July 27, 2020: Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, announces that the bank accounts of Sotoudeh and her family in Tehran have been frozen since May on orders of the Prosecutor’s Office. All efforts by Khandan to unblock the accounts have been unsuccessful, and the family remains unable to access their funds.
March 16, 2020: Sotoudeh announces in a statement that she will go on hunger strike to protest the continued custody of political prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic. She argues in her statement from Evin Prison that state authorities are keeping these prisoners incarcerated until the “horrors of this health crisis spread to their lives and impact their families, as well.”
March 6, 2020: In honor of International Women’s Day, Nasrin Sotoudeh pens an essay from Evin Prison, published in Time magazine. In it, she calls for peace, and for the Iranian government to “to end their animosity with the world, to look at the world through the eyes of peace and to trust life and human beings.”
February 3, 2020: Nominated by students, Nasrin Sotoudeh receives an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven, a research university in Belgium as part of their Patron’s Day Celebrations.
January 2020: Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada awards Nasrin Sotoudeh an honorary doctorate in absentia to honor her work and demonstrate “support for her and the Iranian people.” Just as awards from educational institutions and rights advocacy groups, including PEN, stimulated dialogue around Sotoudeh’s previous arrest and helped secure her 2013 release, Queen’s University hopes that the awarding of an honorary doctorate can once again bring Sotoudeh’s case to global attention.
March 11, 2019: According to reports, Nasrin Sotoudeh tells her husband, Reza Khandan, she is sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes and that it should be reported as such although the sentence may be reduced later. The Iranian media initially reports that she is sentenced to seven years in prison, quoting a statement of an Iranian judge. Khandan further tells to the CHRI that her sentence is based on seven different charges mentioned below.
March 5, 2019: Sotoudeh is reportedly convicted on multiple charges but her sentence in writing has not been issued yet. According to news reports, the charges for which she has been convicted are not yet clear, but the charges she was facing since her arrest in June 2018 could result in imprisonment up to 34 years and 148 lashes. These charges are, “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center, the Legam group [against capital punishment], and the National Peace Council,” “encouraging corruption and prostitution,” “appearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab,” “disturbing public peace and order” and “publishing falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion.”
January 22, 2019: Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan and another activist, Farhad Meysami, are sentenced to six years in prison and banned from leaving the country or engaging in online activities for two years for protesting the mandatory hijab law in Iran. They are both convicted of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the state.” Khandan tells the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that they were sentenced unlawfully in the absence of a public trial and without due process.
December 30, 2018: Sotoudeh is reportedly tried in absentia in Tehran. She allegedly refuses to appear in court because she is denied the right to choose her own lawyer and wanted to protest the unjust judicial process.
December 28, 2018: Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh’s husband, is released on bail.
December 13, 2018: The European Parliament adopts a resolution by 552 votes in favor, and 6 against, with 38 abstentions, calling on Iranian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Sotoudeh, to “ensure the right of all defendants to a legal counsel of their choice in all court cases without undue limitations, and to a fair trial, in line with Iran’s international commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” as well as “ensure the due process rights of all citizens detained in Iran and to grant them a fair trial.”
September 4, 2018: Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh’s husband, is arrested and taken to the Office of the Prosecutor in Tehran’s Evin Prison, where he is charged with “spreading propaganda against the system” and “colluding to commit crimes against national security,” after posting several updates about his wife’s June 2018 arrest online.
August 2018: Three agents from Iran’s Intelligence Ministry raid her family’s home while her children are asleep, as well as the house of her sister-in-law. “They came into the house at eight in the morning when the kids were sleeping and turned everything upside down,” Sotoudeh’s husband told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “They took away some things, like pins that had ‘I’m Against Forced Hijab’ written on them.”
This kind of harassment has intensified since her arrest in June: the raid was one prime example of the ways the government has tried to intimidate Sotoudeh’s family and supporters. In response to her arrest and the continued harassment of her family, Sotoudeh begins a hunger strike in Evin prison.
June 17, 2018: To protest Sotoudeh’s arrest, her husband Reza Khandan and defense lawyers Arash Keykhosravi and Payam Derafshan, as well as several civil rights activists, gathered outside the gates of Evin Prison. Security agents beat the protesters and detained nine of them for several hours. Keykhosravi and Derafshan, as well as two other protesters, “received a lot of injuries,” Khandan reported.
June 13, 2018: Sotoudeh is re-arrested and detained at her home in Tehran, where she is informed she has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted in absentia. She had recently criticized the country’s judiciary and was apparently planning a sit-in to protest recent restrictions on defendants’ ability to hire independent lawyers in national security cases when she was arrested, according to news reports. In protest of the new rule, she has reportedly refused to hire a defense attorney for herself. She has also declined to post bail in protest of the charges against her.
Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that she was informed during interrogation that she is charged with “propaganda against the state” and “assembly and collusion” for supposedly colluding with her client, Shaparak Shajarizadeh, at the Kashan courthouse. Ms. Shajarizadeh, one of Sotoudeh’s clients, was arrested for removing her headscarf in public. According to Mr. Khandan, these accusations are completely baseless as Sotoudeh was unable to meet Ms. Shajarizadeh in Kashan when she was arrested because she was in Tehran, 152 miles away. Mr. Khandan also reports that Sotoudeh is considering joining the hijab protests by removing her headscarf in prison to protest her own arrest.
June 2015: Her license to practice law is reinstated.
December 10, 2014: On Human Rights Day and the 50th day of her sit-in, Sotoudeh is again arrested and detained, but released hours later.
October 25, 2014: She is arrested and detained at a demonstration while protesting a recent string of acid attacks against women, and released several hours later.
October 18, 2014: Branch Two of the Lawyers’ Disciplinary Court at the Iranian Bar Association bans Sotoudeh from her law practice for three years. On October 21, Sotoudeh begins a sit-in in front of the Bar Association to protest the ruling banning her from her law practice.
September 18, 2013: She is released from Evin Prison, on the eve of President Rouhani’s first visit to the United States. Previously, Sotoudeh had been released for short visits with her family.
December 4, 2012: Sotoudeh ends her hunger strike after authorities lift the travel ban on her daughter. Her husband reports that she had lived entirely on salt water and sugar water and that her weight had dropped to only 95 pounds. She spent 17 days in solitary confinement as punishment for her hunger strike but was eventually returned to Ward 209 of Evin Prison.
October 17, 2012: Sotoudeh goes on a hunger strike to protest her prison conditions and a travel ban placed on her 12-year-old daughter Mehraveh.
September 2011: An appeals court reduces Sotoudeh’s sentence from 11 years to 6, and her ban from working as a lawyer is reduced from 20 to 10. The ban is later reduced to three years and then nine months. Since nine months of the suspension had already passed by then, her license is effectively reinstated.
January 9, 2011: Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court sentences Sotoudeh to a total of 11 years in prison—one year for “spreading lies against the state,” five years for “acting against national security,” and another five years for “cooperating with the Center for Human Rights Defenders.” The court also bans her from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years after leaving prison.
September 4, 2010: She is summoned to special court at Evin prison, and arrested on charges of “spreading lies against the state,” “cooperating with the Center of Human Rights Defenders,” and “conspiracy to disturb order.” She was denied access to her lawyer and was restricted family visits for the first several months of her detention. Iran’s Secretary of the High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, claimed that Sotoudeh’s prosecution was not “due to her being a lawyer,” but because of her interviews in defense of her clients who had been arrested during the June 2009 crackdown, which Larijani labeled as “propaganda against the state.” In addition to the charge for interviews she gave with the media, she is believed to have been charged for a recorded acceptance speech, never shown in Iran, thanking the International Human Rights Organization of Italy for awarding her its Human Rights Prize in 2008, during which she did not wear a headscarf. Sotoudeh was barred from leaving Iran to accept the award personally.
August 29, 2010: Security officers raid Sotoudeh’s home, confiscating several of her files and documents.
FREE EXPRESSION IN IRAN
Iran is among the world’s worst free expression offenders. Hundreds of journalists are currently imprisoned on politically-motivated charges in Iran alongside scores of other writers, bloggers, artists, human rights defenders, and other political prisoners. President Hassan Rouhani pledged to initiate liberal reforms and to improve Iran’s free speech record during his election campaign but has thus far failed to deliver positive results. Iran remains notorious for a judicial system completely lacking in transparency, which is guilty of numerous arbitrary arrests and one of the world’s highest rates of capital punishment. Human rights organizations report that political prisoners are often kept in solitary confinement, restricted from connecting with their families for long periods of time.
IN THEIR WORDS
After her release from Evin Prison in 2013, Sotoudeh said to The New Yorker, “I was released but I was not freed. For me, this sort of freedom is meaningless when my friends are still in prison.”
During her first imprisonment, Sotoudeh wrote a letter to her husband, which he shared on Facebook in 2014. “My dear Reza, everyone ponders about their freedom while in prison,” she reflected. “Although my freedom is also important to me, it is not more important than the justice that has been ignored and denied . . . . Nothing is more important than those hundreds of years of sentences that were rendered to my clients and other freedom-seeking individuals, accused of crimes they had not committed.”