The 45-year-old lawyer has been kept in Evin prison with some of the prisoners she defended in court.
She was originally sentenced in January to 11 years and banned for 20 years from working as a lawyer or traveling abroad. Her offenses were “acting against the national security,” “propaganda against the regime” and “membership in the Human Rights Defenders Center”-a rights organization led by the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, told The Guardian of Britain his wife’s ban from working as a lawyer had also been halved by the appeals court to 10 years.
Sotoudeh, the mother of a 3-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, fell foul of the authorities after highlighting juvenile executions in Iran and representing activists arrested in 2009 for post-election protests.
She has declined visits from her family the last few weeks after she said they were mistreated by guards while at Evin waiting to see her.