Iranian security forces took her from her home in the evening. Also taking away computers and cell phones. And without giving any information about the prison in which she was locked up: the well-known Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh thus disappeared from her home in Tehran, where she was alone. Her daughter reported it on social media, accompanying the message with a photo of the smiling woman.
“We just learned that mom was arrested last night while she was alone,” her daughter Mehraveh Khandan wrote on Instagram.
“When the relatives went to the house, we found that electronic devices had been confiscated, including mum and dad’s laptops and phones. The mother has not been heard from so far and we have no information on the agency that carried out the arrest,” adds Mehraveh. Sotoudeh’s latest statements, critical of the regime, date back two days ago. In an interview with IranWire he stated: “A government that for half a century has shouted death slogans against this or that country has now put us at risk of death.”
Sotoudeh, 62, born in Tehran, a human rights lawyer and activist, often called the Mandela of Iran, has been arrested several times in the past for her work. The last time in November 2023 – later released on bail – due to protests against the obligation to wear the hijab. In 2019 she was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes for defending Iranian women. He has won numerous awards such as the European Parliament’s Sakharov in 2012 and the Right Livelihood Award in 2020.
He also gained notoriety thanks to his film appearances, such as the cameo in Jafar Panahi’s 2015 film ‘Taxi Tehran’. Her husband, Reza Khandan, has been in prison since December 2024, for advocating for women’s rights in Iran. Sotoudeh’s arrest is just one of many signs of intensifying repression in Iran. The executions began about ten days ago for the arrests made during the anti-government protests in January and for which a final verdict was issued.
In recent days, 4 political prisoners have been executed. Today the name of a young 18-year-old protester, Amirhossein Hatami, who was executed by hanging, was also added. He was convicted of “entering a military center and damaging it”, says the judiciary. But for him “no lawyer” and “no fair trial, only “an extorted confession” after “being tortured”, writes Iranian journalist and dissident living in the USA Masih Alineajad on X, warning: “his friends could be next”.