Iran rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh 'gets 11 years jail'

 

 

 

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 11 years in jail, her husband has said.

She has also been banned for 20 years from working as a lawyer and from leaving the country.

She was arrested in September, accused of acting against national security.

The New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) has called the sentence a "gross miscarriage of justice", adding it should be overturned on appeal.

Reza Khandan, Ms Sotoudeh's husband, said she was found guilty of acting against national security, propaganda against the regime and membership of the Human Rights Defenders' Centre, a group headed by Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

The accusations against Ms Sotoudeh, a mother of two, were mainly over interviews with foreign-based media about her clients jailed after Iran's disputed June 2009 presidential election, he added.

Ms Sotoudeh has represented Iranian opposition activists and politicians, as well as Ms Ebadi.

"This is a transparently political sentence aimed at taking one of Iran's leading human rights defenders out of practice via a gross miscarriage of justice," said ICHRI spokesman Hadi Ghaemi.

"Nasrin Sotoudeh has broken no laws, but is being jailed because she has upheld Iranian and international law in a judicial system bent on violating human rights," he said.