It was Nasrin Sotoudeh’s birthday. We sang songs for her next to the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. On Saturday June 1, human rights activists from several European countries met in Berlin for a conference to find ways of supporting the people of Iran in their effort to defend human rights and self-determination in Iran. Some activists took action: they went to the crowded Brandenburger Tor, informed people about Nasrin Sotoudeh’s case and sang birthday songs for the lawyer who is imprisoned in the dungeons of the regime. It was her 50th birthday.
At the Brandenbruger Tor, Ms. Sotoudeh’s case attracted the attention of football fans as well as the interest of people who had travelled to Berlin from all over the world to see in person a symbol of the separation and to learn about parts of German history. The current situation of Nasrin Sotoudeh also attracted the world’s attention and the activists of the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights in Iran were repeatedly filmed and photographed with their poster and during singing their songs and asked for information about this case and the current situation of the people in Iran.
Even in front of the embassy of I.R. Iran in Berlin-Dahlem, Podbielskiallee 67, the activists gathered and performed birthday songs in different languages. Out loud they campaigned for the immediate and unconditional release of the lawyer who is a symbol of all political prisoners in Iran.
In the following, we quote Amnesty International’s statement about the case:
On 9 January 2011, Iranian authorities sentenced the Iranian human rights lawyer Sotoudeh (49), a mother of two children aged five and twelve years old, to 11 years in prison, in addition to barring her from practicing law and from leaving the country for 20 years. An appeals court later reduced Sotoudeh’s prison sentence to six years, and her work and travel ban to ten years.
Since her arrest on 4 September 2010, Nasrin Sotoudeh is in Evin prison in Tehran, where she was held during a long time in solitary confinement. Her health is weakened due to the three hunger strikes during which she protested against the arrest without charge or trial and against the conditions in detention. On the morning of 17 October 2012, she launched another hunger strike. She protested against the rejection of her repeated requests to be able to see her family without the glass wall separation. On 5 December 2012, Nasrin Sotoudeh ended her hunger strike when the travel ban imposed on her daughter was lifted.
Nasrin Sotoudeh defended several well-known human rights and political activists in Iran – but also represented juvenile offenders on the death row, as well as the Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Amnesty International considers Nasrin Sotoudeh as a prisoner of conscience who is being held as a lawyer only because of her work, and calls for her immediate and unconditional release.
Click here for an action by Amnesty International, which calls for her release: http://action.amnesty.de/l/ger/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8879&d=1
By: IOPHRI.DE
Source: mehriran