Shortly after the prize was announced, the European Parliament said a parliamentary delegation had canceled a long-planned trip to Iran because the Islamic Republic would not allow the delegation to visit with Sotoudeh and Panahi.
The parliamentary visit was part of an EU effort to try to keep communications to Iran open. Previous planned visits by European parliamentary groups have also been canceled and no delegation from the EU Parliament has been to Iran in five years since 2007. The effort to improve ties thus ends up with a further darkening of relations.
However, a four-member German Bundestag delegation arrived in Tehran Saturday, the same day the EU group canceled.
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, announced the winners of the Sakharov Prize Friday, saying it was “a message of solidarity and recognition to a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation and who have decided to put the fate of their country before their own.
Sotoudeh, 47, is serving a six-year prison term for agitating against national security, presumably referring to her activities with the Center for Human Rights Defenders, which was founded by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi with her Nobel Prize cash award. Sotoudeh went on a hunger strike in mid-October.
Panahi, 52, is on leave from a six-year prison term and confined to his house. The filmmaker has been banned from producing any films for 20 years. After the film ban was imposed, Panahi produced a movie entitled, “This is Not a Film,” which has been screened widely around the world. The regime has not added to his punishment for that violation.
Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, said he had heard from one of her cellmates last week that his wife’s condition was “very bad.”
Khandan expressed exasperation with the prison’s treatment of her, especially ending her visitation rights with her husband and two young children. “If [Tehran’s] prosecutor had issued a letter that Nasrin could meet with her family in person, it surely would have avoided her going on a hunger strike. But they shut down all hope and push the prisoner to the point where her life is in danger. We’re not asking for any special privileges. We’re not trying to release her, even though she is innocent, but why are they creating all these tensions? Why must a prisoner, a mother, be deprived from visiting her family in person or calling her family from prison?”
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted Hossain Shaikholeslam, foreign affairs adviser to the speaker of the Majlis, as saying of the canceled EU visit, “If the delegation agrees to visit Iran under the initially agreed conditions and agenda, then there is no objection to the visit…. But we cannot accept the new pre-condition.”
Schulz had earlier warned that the visit would be canceled if the delegation was not allowed to visit with Sotoudeh and Panahi.
Deputy Alaeddin Borujerdi, chairman of the Majlis National Security Committee, said the Europeans had backed out of the visit under pressure from Zionists. He said the “excuse” made by the EU group was a ploy to cover up their weaknesses and the fact that they obey Zionist orders, PressTV reported.
The Sakharov Prize includes a cash award of 50,000 euros ($65,000).