Tehran: Charged with several national security-related offences, Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian human rights lawyer, has been sentenced to 38 years in jail and 148 lashes. This was revealed by her family sources.
It must be noted that the award-winning human rights activist Nasrin has denied the charges and rights groups have strongly criticised the “shocking” sentence.
Sotoudeh represents women who have protested having to wear the headscarf and speaks out against the death penalty.
BBC with reference to the Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that Sotoudeh’s husband confirmed her sentence on Facebook, after a brief phone conversation with her from prison.
According to her lawyer, Nasrin was charged with spreading information against the state, insulting Iran’s supreme leader and spying.
Iran had arrested at least seven human rights lawyers last year; Nasrin was one among them. She was arrested in June after she represented a number of women arrested for appearing in public without a headscarf, or hijab – a punishable offence.
Sotoudeh, a former political prisoner, was also jailed between 2010 and 2013 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security.
European Parliament gave her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for her work representing opposition activists.