Abrar Hussain: Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has begun another hunger strike in prison, in protest over the recent arrest of a prominent civil rights activist as well the harassment of his and her families by security forces. She announced her hunger strike yesterday in a note posted on her husband’s Facebook page.
Sotoudeh served about half of a six-year jail sentence imposed in 2010 for ‘spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security’. She denied the charges before being freed in September 2013. In June, she was arrested again and according to her husband, Reza Khandan, she is facing security charges.
“Since none of my correspondence with the authorities has produced a result, I have no choice but to start a hunger strike as of [25 August] in protest against the judicial arrests and pressure against my family, relatives and friends,” Sotoudeh wrote on Khandan’s Facebook page, adding, “With the hope of the establishment of law and justice in our dear country Iran.”
In 2012, Sotoudeh, who has represented Iranian opposition activists, had embarked on a 50-day hunger strike in protest against a travel ban on her daughter. Her case then caused an international outcry during which the US and the human rights group Amnesty International criticized Iran.
Sotoudeh recently represented a number of women who had removed their hijabs in public to protest against Iran’s mandatory Islamic dress code for women.
¬-Source: The Guardian