Amnesty International welcomed the release last week of prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. She was a prisoner of conscience and the subject of sustained activism by Amnesty International members and partners since her arrest in 2010.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a mother of two, has defended Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and other human rights activists, as well as juvenile offenders sentenced to death. She had been serving a six-year prison sentence (reduced from an original eleven years) and had been banned from practicing law and traveling for ten years. She was convicted on charges including "acting against national security" and "spreading propaganda against the regime." She was convicted and sentenced after an unfair trial in a Revolutionary Court, but she was targeted solely for her peaceful work representing her clients.
