September 27-2013
Last Wednesday night, a warden at Evin prison drove one of his prisoners to her home for one of her occasional brief furloughs to see her family. When the car came to a stop outside Nasrin Sotoudeh’s house, the warden informed her that he would not be returning in a few days to pick her up. He would not be returning ever.
She was free!
“The officer who drove me home said I am permanently released. I don’t have to return to prison,” Sotoudeh told reporters.
She was arrested in September 2010 and sentenced after appeals to six years in prison and a ban on practicing law for 10 years. She had just completed half her term.
She was one of 15 people arrested since the 2009 post-election protests to be freed last week.
Sotoudeh, who turned 50 last May, was convicted of “propaganda against the system.” But everyone assumes her real offense was that she worked as a lawyer with the Center for Human Rights Offenders that was founded by Shirin Ebadi with the money she was awarded along with her 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.
When Sotoudeh was asked if she would return to her human rights legal practice, she said, “Definitely! I have permission to work and I will continue.”
But for now Sotoudeh is very busy being a wife and a mom to 12-year-old daughter, Mehraveh, and five-year-old son Nima, who really can’t remember having his mother around the house.
Around the world, Sotoudeh has become the poster girl or symbol of all the political prisoners arrested since 2009. In 2011, President Obama spoke of her case by name, saying her imprisonment was a sign of fear on the part of the Iranian state. In 2012, the EU awarded her its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
The speaker of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, welcomed her release. “I commend this important positive signal by the Iranian authorities. We are eagerly awaiting to welcome her in Strasbourg together with her Sakharov Prize co-winner, film director Jafar Panahi,” who remains under home detention.
Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khadem, announced his wife’s release on his Facebook page. He said she was given no explanation for her unconditional release.
While in prison, Sotoudeh went on repeated hunger strikes to protest her treatment. One hunger strike last year, which lasted almost 50 days, protested a government order barring her daughter from leaving the country.