Sotoudeh was arrested last September and is now serving an 11-year sentence for her advocacy of her clients arrested after the June 2009 presidential elections, especially interviews she gave about their cases.
The award, which honors international literary figures who have been persecuted or imprisoned for exercising or defending the right to freedom of expression, will be presented at PEN’s Annual Gala April 26, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, a close friend of Sotoudeh, will accept the award on her behalf.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of PEN American Center, said, “At a moment when women and men around the world are standing together peacefully to reclaim this most basic truth [of rights guaranteed to all], she is in one of the world’s most infamous prisons, to the great shame of the Iranian government.”
Sotoudeh is 47 and the mother of two young children. She passed the bar exam in 1995, but was not permitted to practice law for another eight years. So, she concentrated on journalism instead, writing for several reformist newspapers. When she was finally granted a law license in 2003, she specialized in women’s and children’s rights.