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Jailed Iran activist Nasrin Sotoudeh goes on hunger strike

August 13, 2020 at 11:36 am

Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh is seen in Tehran on 1 November, 2008 [Arash Ashourinia/AFP/Getty Images]

Human rights activist and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has begun a hunger strike to protest “the injustice and illegal conditions that political detainees are subjected to in Iranian prisons”.

“My client Nasrin Sotoudeh announced today, August 12, in a letter; She has gone on a hunger strike to protest the unjust and illegal situation of political prisoners, which has been exacerbated by the outbreak of Corona,” Sotoudeh’s lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, said on Twitter.

In September 2010, Iranian authorities arrested Sotoudeh for participating in protests following the 2009 presidential elections, accusing her of insulting the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

READ: Iran arrests five Iranians for spying for foreign states

In January 2011, an Iranian court sentenced her to 11 years in prison and banned her from practicing law or traveling for 20 years.

Later, an appeals court reduced the sentence to six years imprisonment and a ban on practicing law for 12 years.

On 18 September 2018, Sotoudeh was released after spending three years in prison, but she was re-arrested on 13 June the following year.