Le juge d’instruction près du Tribunal militaire de première instance a décidé, lundi 2 août 2021, la Levée des recherches contre Seif Eddine Makhlouf, Mehdi Zagrouban, Nidhal Saoudi, Abdellatif Aloui et Mohamed Affes, et ce, jusqu’à l’achèvement des procédures judiciaires à leur encontre.
Notons que les députés Al Karama et l’avocat Mehdi Zagrouba sont impliqué dans l’affaire de l’aéroport, où ils sont intervenus pour faciliter le passage d’une citoyenne fichée S17.
The judge will issue another mandate to summon them.
— Dr. Jur. Aymen Zaghdoudi (@zaghdoudist) August 3, 2021
𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟐, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟏#Tunisia The senior investigating judge of the first office of the Permanent Military Court of #Tunis, on Monday, suspended the wanted notices issued against MPs of Al Karama and lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba.https://t.co/Cb5J7WOTJQpic.twitter.com/XGIqytwHvn
#Tunisia: the senior investigating judge at the #Tunis Permanent Military Court Monday ordered suspending the wanted notices issued against Al Karama MPs Seifeddine Makhlouf, Nidhal Saoudi, Abdellatif Aloui & Mohamed Affes and lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba. https://t.co/Li90R9xDKSpic.twitter.com/Ijb0dDIgzP
These doc are in Arabic but one is saying to stop the order to bring them in front of the court. The second one is a rectification of the procedures to summon them, because the law here enshrines that lawyers are summoned based on special procedures. pic.twitter.com/ayqIVIMxH2
— Dr. Jur. Aymen Zaghdoudi (@zaghdoudist) August 3, 2021
I don't think, it's an information. They are asked to appear before the judge (military court) on August, 9th.
— Dr. Jur. Aymen Zaghdoudi (@zaghdoudist) August 3, 2021
Exactly. A lawyer cannot be summoned without informing the bar association before.
— Dr. Jur. Aymen Zaghdoudi (@zaghdoudist) August 3, 2021
In the year since making an unprecedented, taboo-breaking speech openly calling for discussion on the role of Thailand’s powerful king, human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa has spent months in jail, charged with the crime of defaming the monarchy.
He’s one of 103 people from Thailand’s youth-led anti-government protests now charged with insulting or threatening King Maha Vajiralongkorn or his immediate family, a crime punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Hundreds more face other criminal charges.
Arnon, 36, says he has no regrets and vows the prosecutions won’t crush the anti-government movement, which in recent weeks has been building again.
“I think it has been worthwhile. Now the society can move forward and people can talk about the monarchy,” Arnon told Reuters in an interview while awaiting trial. He denies any wrongdoing.
The king has traditionally been portrayed as above reproach in conservative Thai culture, and any criticism of the monarch – whom some have viewed as semi-divine – is taboo as well as illegal.
Arnon, however, says talking openly about the monarchy is necessary in the push for democratic reform and the ouster of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who first came to power in a 2014 coup and has long associated himself with loyalty to the king.
Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri on Monday defended the criminal cases against protesters.
[…]
Arnon, an adviser to the youth movement, faces 12 separate lese majeste cases and spent 113 days imprisoned before being released on bail in June.
Three more human rights attorneys in Iran were handed unjust prison sentences in July 2021 amid an ongoing campaignto eliminate due process for activists and dissidents by intimidating the lawyers who defend them, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.
At least four defense lawyers were imprisoned in the country on trumped-up charges as of August 2021 (Nasrin Sotoudeh, Mohammad Najafi, Soheila Hejab, and Giti Pourfazel), and at least two additional lawyers (Farzaneh Zilabi and Mohammad Hadi Erfanian-Kaseb) were prosecuted on false charges in June 2021.
Javad Alikordi, a defense attorney and law professor, was taken to Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, on July 15, 2021, to begin serving a two-year prison sentence for running a Telegram messaging app social media channel.
Any peaceful action, including appearing in public without your headscarf if you are a woman, or promoting human rights as a defense attorney can be prosecuted as a national security crime in Iran, where the state is not only trying to eliminate all forms of dissent and criticism of its policies but also imprisons the lawyers who try to defend activists.
Alikordi, a former member of the City Council in Sabzevar, Khorasan Razavi Province, was arrested by Intelligence Ministry agents in Mashhad on April 22, 2020, and held in solitary confinement for more than a month.
He was tried at Branch 4 of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad presided by Judge Mansouri [first name unknown] at an unknown date and convicted of “creating and managing a channel on Telegram (messaging app) with the intention of overthrowing the state” (6.5 years in prison), “insulting the supreme leader” (1.5 years), and “propaganda against the state” (eight months).
Upon appeal, his 6.5-year prison sentence for “creating and managing a channel on Telegram (messaging app) with the intention of overthrowing the state” was reduced to two years in prison, the length of time he must remain behind bars according to Article 134 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code.
Branch 37 of the Appeals Court in Khorasan Razavi Province meanwhile upheld other punishments against Alikordi, including a two-year ban on teaching, a two-year ban on traveling abroad, and a two-year ban on membership in political and social groups.
Amirsalar Davoudi, another defense attorney who was imprisoned for running a Telegram channel, learned that the Tehran Revolutionary Court re-issued a sentence of 30 years in prison and 111 lashes that was initially revoked by the Supreme Court.
https://t.co/3ZIVSoF4iw Hana; Javad Alikordi is a lawyer and university professor, and a former member of the Sabzevar City Council was sentenced to prison for his activities in cyberspace.#Iran
— Hana Human Rights Organization (@KurdistanHumanR) August 2, 2021
"We call on the international legal community, especially the International Bar Association (@IBAHRI) to be the voice of #AmirsalarDavoudi and other independent lawyers in #Iran." (end)
#AmirsalarDavoudi's longest sentence (15yrs) is for “forming a group to overthrow the political system" through his Telegram channel “No Retouch” where he discussed breaches in judicial processes, the judicial harassment of lawyers and human rights abuses.https://t.co/jlS8XPvUFG
After the Supreme Court granted a retrial in the case of human rights lawyer #AmirsalarDavoudi, Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court of #Tehran has reconfirmed the original sentence of 30 years imprisonment and 111 lashes. His lawyer says they will be appealing the decision #Iranhttps://t.co/U1rknp8eGb
With the voice of Mohammad Najafi, to support and show solidarity with the nationwide uprising of the Iranian people✊Mohammad Najafi is a lawyer for political prisoners and is currently in prison👏🙏✌️
To: International Community Subject: The Calamitous Situation of Human Rights in Iran under the mullahs.
Islamic regime in Iran must release Mr. Najafi from the jail. The set of allegations against Mr. Mohammad Najafi, a Lawyer and Human Rights Activist are false, as usual. … pic.twitter.com/4c2CylYALU
ساعت ٩صبح امروز دادگاه #محمد_نجفی وكيل دادگستری در شعبه ۲دادگاه انقلاب اراک برگزار میشود. اتهام جدیدش تبليغ عليه نظام به دلیلِ درخواست تحريم انتخابات و تغییر قانون اساسی و عزل رهبری است که خواسته اکثر مردم ایران بوده است.
Le bureau est encerclé par les forces de l’ordre dans le but de l’appréhender, pour son implication dans “l’affaire de l’aéroport”, selon une publication partagée sur la page officielle du chef du Bloc al-Karama, Seifeddine Makhlouf
L’avocat Mehdi Zagrouba effectue un sit-in au bureau de l’Ordre des avocats, qui se trouve au Tribunal de première instance de Tunis, sur fond de son implication dans l’affaire de l’aéroport de Tunis-Carthage survenue le 15 mars 2021.
C’est ce qui ressort d’une publication partagée lundi sur Facebook, par le président de la Coalition al-Karama, Seifeddine Makhlouf.
Makhlouf a fait savoir que Mehdi Zagrouba était actuellement au bureau du bâtonnier et que plusieurs policiers encerclaient les lieux dans le but de l’arrêter.
Et d’ajouter : “Nous ne reconnaîtrons pas les procès des civils devant les tribunaux militaires. Nous avons défendu le droit d’une femme tunisienne à la libre circulation en l’absence de toute interdiction judiciaire”. Poursuivant : “Nous ne sommes pas des criminels et nous ne répondrons à aucune question. Exécutez-nous mais vous ne nous verrez pas humiliés.”
Le 15 mars, les députés de la Coalition Al-Karama, menés par Seifeddine Makhlouf, avaient semé le chaos à l’aéroport Tunis-Carthage quand une femme tunisienne avait été interdite d’embarquer, en vertu de la procédure S17.
On 28 July 2021, the head of the bar association issued a decision to form a committee headed by the undersecretary/deputy head of the bar. Its membership includes 13 lawyers, some of whom occupy syndicate positions, whether in the structural hierarchy of the bar council (board) or subsidiary heads.
The substantial content of the resolution is to censor, monitor and evaluate what lawyers publish on the Internet, especially on social media.
The resolution starts with an angry introductory note and ends with an explicit threat to exercise oversight and censorship through a mechanism that lacks independence and that violates the law in terms of jurisdiction and evidence.
The following points highlight the most important features of this committee, how it works and how it poses a danger to freedom of expression, as well as its usurpation of the powers/roles of oversight bodies entrusted with the investigation of crimes.
An angry prelude leads to encroachment on the law and the rules of justice:
As a justification for an exceptional decision whose prelude is also exceptional, it carries a measure of anger and lacks the necessary amount of respect for the law; such as, but not limited to, the following phrase: “because it has failed all the efforts that I personally made for a year and a half to put an end to such offences, verbal insults, lies, and obscenities and bring them back the right way…. but these attempts failed….and this encouraged others not to implement prompt justice…which is what can no longer be continued nor tolerated….”
The resolution’s prelude refers to a certain incident where the head of the bar association failed to hold those responsible accountable in accordance with the law; a complaint/report, a technical investigation, filing or shelving a criminal case, a direct prosecution, a criminal judgment/ruling, or referral to a disciplinary body. Such a failed course in a specific case- or cases- leads to the violation of the law!
The danger here lies in the idea of inclining to seek or take revenge instead of implementing justice, from an institution that showed honorable stances in defending the law, its sovereignty and the values of justice.
Objective, mechanism, proof and punishment:
The decision set a goal for the aforementioned committee: “to monitor the insults, slander, libel and defamation subjected by any lawyer (male or female) or any individual, and that are published on the Internet and social media websites alongside newspapers or any audio publications.”
According to the resolution, the committee’s role is represented in “submitting a printed copy of a certain incident monitored on social media or a newspaper, or any audio or visual publication to the bar association’s disciplinary department, which, in turn, receives complaints from lawyers or individual people and submits a note to the head of the bar”.
The penalties stipulated in the resolution:
The resolution said that that the applicable article here is Paragraph 5 of Article 13 of the Advocates Law (Lawyers’ Law), which states “He should be of good conduct, good reputation, worthy of the due respect for the profession, and that no disciplinary judgments are issued against him or that his relationship with his job, profession is cut off for reasons related to his suitability for the job he was occupying.” The decision interpreted this article as follows: “According to what was stated in the last paragraph of the same article, not meeting any of the aforementioned conditions or the eight items mentioned in the abovementioned article…” the lawyer’s membership in the bar association will be cancelled by force of law from the date of not meeting of any of these conditions” ….. Hence the penalty will be the most severe- cancelling his membership”!
Gamal Eid’s case is emblematic of the deterioration in #Egypt’s human rights situation over recent years, as the al-Sisi regime cracks down on all forms of dissent. 🔴
strongly agree. the continued harassment & persecution of @gamaleid should be on every govt's diplomatic agenda with #Egypt today. https://t.co/u0nB9SqWiG
Interrogation session of Egyptian human rights lawyer and defender @gamaleid in Case No. 173 of 2011 was supposed to continue today, but has been rescheduled to Tuesday, August 3. https://t.co/4IIvOKV7uV
Together with more than 50 lawyers’ organizations, bar associations, civil society organisations and individual lawyers, Lawyers for Lawyers co-signed a joint statement on the mounting repression against Belarusian lawyers and the disbarment of Dmitriy Laevski.
Since peaceful protests in Belarus erupted in 2020, following the presidential election condemned by the international community, the law in Belarus has been turned into a tool of oppression, and lawyers – into victims of political persecution. Lawyers, who express views contrary to those of the government or represent peaceful protestors or opposition leaders in courts, face constant pressure. Repressions against law practitioners take multiple forms – including criminal persecution, administrative arrests, punitive disciplinary proceedings. In a span of ten months, more than twenty Belarusian lawyers, who took an active political and civic stance, have been deprived of the right to practice their profession.
Lawyer Dmitriy Laevski was disbarred by the decision of the Minsk City Bar Association on 9 July 2021. The decision on disbarment was taken by the disciplinary commission of the bar association on 8 July 2021. The decision on expelling Dmitriy Laevski was urgently taken within one day and only two days after a verdict was announced in the high-profile case of one of his clients Viktar Babaryka – ex-presidential candidate, key political opponent of Alexander Lukashenko and now a political prisoner.
On 8 July 2021, Dmitriy Laevski participated in two disciplinary proceedings. The first concerned the judicial appeal to the previously made decision of the disciplinary commission of the Minsk City Bar Association on reprimanding Dmitriy for his Facebook post, commenting about the recent amendments to the Law on Legal Practice. The second one – as a result of which Dmitriy was eventually disbarred – concerned the statement made during Viktar Babaryka’s hearing, which hinted at the innocence of Babaryka’s co-defendants, who pleaded guilty during the trial. It is precisely Dmitriy’s procedural position and the realization of his legal defense mission that became the ground for his disbarment. On 17 July 2021, Laevski appealed the decision of the disciplinary commission and published the full text of his appeal.
Being deprived of his license, Dmitriy Laevski cannot proceed to represent the interests of another high-profile political prisoner and lawyer Maksim Znak, whose trial is about to commence. Due to the disbarment, the defendant in one of the most resonant political cases has been deprived of his main defender.
Together with more than 50 lawyers’ organizations, bar associations, civil society organisations and individual lawyers, L4L co-signed a joint statement on the mounting repression against Belarusian lawyers and the disbarment of Dmitriy Laevski. https://t.co/TTAsz0Jzi7
More than 50 leading lawyers' organisations, promoting the standards of #ruleoflaw and #humanrights have signed a joint letter on the continuing repressions against lawyers in #Belarus including the disbarment of Dmitriy Laevski. @UNIndepJudges
RT @CCBEinfo: Plus de 50 organisations d'avocats, qui défendent les normes de l'#étatdedroit et des #droitshumains, ont signé une lettre commune sur les répressions continues contre les avocats en #Biélorussie dont la radiation de Dmitriy Laevski.@UNIndepJudges
Plus de 50 organisations d'avocats, qui défendent les normes de l'#étatdedroit et des #droitshumains, ont signé une lettre commune sur les répressions continues contre les avocats en #Biélorussie dont la radiation de Dmitriy Laevski.@UNIndepJudges
Belarus cancelling the license of a lawyer after he spoke to the media about the detention conditions of his client, an opposition presidential candidate, violated the lawyer’s rights to a fair hearing and free expression. — UN Human Rights Committee. https://t.co/Ju5oFAxMB1pic.twitter.com/QNJ1ipZESR
OHCHR | #Belarus: Disqualifying lawyer of former presidential candidate violates rights to fair trial and freedom of expression– UN Human Rights Committee https://t.co/4so6xigy1i
#Belarus: Decision to cancel the licence of a lawyer after he spoke to media about the detention conditions of his client, an opposition presidential candidate, violated the lawyer’s rights, Human Rights Committee has found. #HRCtteehttps://t.co/OmmdmDHIZ1
Egyptian authorities have summoned at least five prominent human rights defenders during July 2021 for questioning as part of a decade-old criminal investigation, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities have used Case 173 of 2011 to arbitrarily prosecute leading rights defenders and organizations over allegations of receiving foreign funds.
Since 2016, authorities have summoned for interrogation dozens of members of nongovernment groups, mostly human rights organizations, and placed over 30 of them on arbitrary travel ban lists, and frozen the assets of over a dozen organizations and individuals. Three of the five people summoned in July had not been questioned previously. The case has had a chilling impact on civic space in Egypt.
“Egyptian authorities should close Case 173 once and for all, and stop harassing independent rights organizations for doing their work,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The repeated summons, on top of travel bans and asset freezes, is clearly a tactic to stifle civic space in Egypt.”
Those summoned most recently include Mozn Hassan, a women’s rights defender and director of Nazra for Feminist Studies and Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, on July 29. On July 27, the authorities summoned Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, and Negad al-Borie, director of the law firm United Group. On July 15, the authorities summoned Azza Soliman, women’s rights defender and director of the Center for Egyptian Women Legal Awareness. The authorities had not previously summoned Bahgat, Eid, or al-Borie despite banning them several years ago from leaving the country.
Based on social media posts and statements by the activists following the latest prosecution sessions, the questions by the investigative judge, Ali Mokhtar, focused on the activists groups’ funding, in some cases as far back as 2005.
Judge Mokhtar allowed them to look at the prosecution file, which consisted mainly of National Security Agency allegations against them and their organizations, such as “tarnishing the image of the government” and in some cases referencing reports these organizations published about human rights abuses. The judge did not allow any of them to take copies of the prosecution files or inform them of the actual charges they are being investigated for.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a statement that Eid’s interrogation lasted about three hours and that the judge ordered him to return for another session on August 1. The statement said that the prosecution file, which Human Rights Watch has not seen, included National Security Agency allegations that Eid and ANHRI had played a role in the country’s 2011 nationwide uprising, and that ANHRI had received funding from Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). CPJ has denied those allegations. Human Rights Watch is typically not a grant-making organization, Human Rights Watch said.
IFEX calls on authorities in #Egypt to immediately drop their politically-motivated prosecution of #humanrights defender & @anhri Director @gamaleid, describing it as the latest example of a sustained program of judicial harassment against him. https://t.co/a9VnoL1j2W
CPJ denies Egyptian authorities’ accusation that it funded press freedom advocate Gamal Eid to defame #Egypthttps://t.co/oCpBQZSqT6
— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom) July 30, 2021
#Egypt human rights activists @hossambahgat and @gamaleid continue to be prosecuted, interrogated, travel banned, assets frozen based on baseless charges of almost a decade.
@gamaleid: the evidence presented during his interrogation was “full of lies and fabrications”—including contradictory information within same file about @anhri history and tax payments—and its purpose, to “take revenge on independent organizations” https://t.co/SsmZ6GE2bu
— US Committee to End Political Repression in Egypt (@UsCommittee) July 29, 2021
التلفيق هو القاعدة وتقارير المخبرين نصوص مقدسة كالقرآن والانجيل!
يحدث كل يوم في محاكم مصر وغرف النيابة، بعد أن احتلت الشرطة مقعد القيادة في المؤسسة القضائية،واستولي المخبرون علي عقول القضاة
Over the past few days, we've closely monitored the summons of Egypt's brightest human rights defenders in Case 173, including @gamaleid, @negadelborai, @Mozn, @hossambahgat, and others.
Follow the 🧵 for more👇
— The Freedom Initiative (@thefreedomi) July 28, 2021
.@gamaleid's interrogation will resume on Sunday. The renowned human rights lawyer & defender was brought in for questioning today as part of Egypt's infamous NGO case (Case No. 173 of 2011), which continues to remain open as a form of reprisal against the work of civil society. https://t.co/rYaTEfcX5M
— US Committee to End Political Repression in Egypt (@UsCommittee) July 27, 2021
@gamaleid on the eve of his interrogation in #Egypt's NGO case: "Even though they filed charges against me ten years ago, this is the first time they’ve conducted an investigation session with me. But I am fully prepared and ready." https://t.co/mwaBApJXiv
— US Committee to End Political Repression in Egypt (@UsCommittee) July 27, 2021
@gamaleid on the eve of his interrogation in #Egypt's NGO case: "Even though they filed charges against me ten years ago, this is the first time they’ve conducted an investigation session with me. But I am fully prepared and ready." https://t.co/mwaBApJXiv
— US Committee to End Political Repression in Egypt (@UsCommittee) July 27, 2021
#Egypt women's rights advocate Azza Soliman remains subject to a travel ban and assets freeze. She supports others, let's support her #CloseCase173@AzzaSoliman1
— AmnestyIpswich ᴀɴᴅ ᴍᴇᴇᴛ woodbridgeamnesty.carrd.co (@AmnestyIpswich) July 20, 2021
July 13, 2021, a summer day in Beijing. The sun was emerging after a rain shower. I waded through puddles on the road heading for Beijing South Railway Station.
It was getting pretty late when the high-speed train arrived in Linyi. Getting off the train, I ran into a former colleague whom I hadn’t seen for years but had long wanted to meet. Whether by a heartfelt wish or divine coincidence, it is such crossing of paths, accidental or planned, that fill life with richness. On this trip, I was to go to Linshu County Detention Center in Linyi City to meet Ding Jiaxi (丁家喜). Having been accused of subverting state power, he has been detained for more than a year and six months. I know Linyi because of a blind citizen who years ago was imprisoned, and placed under house arrest after being released from prison, for helping victims of China’s violent birth control policy.
On the morning of July 14, I came to the Linshu County Detention Center and was told by the police at reception to “wait for notice” after submitting a request form for interviewing my client.
In the afternoon, I went to the Linyi City Procuratorate, which was responsible for the case, and contacted the prosecutor of the case asking for continuing to review the case file. Ding Jiaxi was placed under residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL) from December 26 2019 until June 19 2020, when his arrest was approved. After the end of the two-month investigation period, the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate three times approved the extension of the investigation period for five months. On January 18, 2021, after the completion of the public security investigation, the case was transferred to the Linyi City Procuratorate for review and prosecution, and the latter twice returned the case to the Public SecurityBureau for supplementary investigation. Currently, the case is under a third review by the Linyi City Procuratorate.
Up until then, the Procuratorate had informed the defense lawyers that because the case “involved state secrets,” they were not allowed to take photos or make copies of the case files and were only allowed to review them under the prosecutors’ supervision. The defense lawyers believe that this restriction on copying case files violates Criminal Procedure Law and restricts lawyers’ defense rights. They filed objections requesting to correct errors and to allow lawyers to take photos or copy case files, but the requests were denied. There are more than 40 volumes of files with information on many people, time, places, procedures, and evidence. Not being allowed to copy files has impeded the lawyers from getting all the facts of the case and preparing for the defense.
Just as I finished reviewing the case files in the evening and was walking out of the Linyi Municipality Procuratorate building, the Linshu County Detention Center called and informed me that I was allowed to meet Ding Jiaxi in the afternoon of July 15.
On the morning of July 15, with the half-day spare time before the meeting, I went to the Linyi Municipality Procuratorate again and reviewed some key procedures and evidence, the two supplementary investigation case files submitted by the Public Security Bureau, and other related files.
There are now 31 new political prisoners since the end of May and over 140 total.
The Police of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo arrested lawyer Maria Oviedo, coordinator of the special legal team of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), on Thursday July 29th in Leon, confirmed that human rights organization.
The president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), Vilma Nunez, said that Oviedo was at her mother’s house when two police vehicles and around thirty policemen arrived to arrest her. She was then taken from Leon to the infamous New El Chipote Police Complex, in Managua.
At first, the reasons for the arrest were unknown. “They took her out of her mother’s house, where she was brushing her teeth. They did not let her take anything with her. They just took her away (…),” assured Nunez.
Later it became known that Oviedo was arrested for the catch-all treason Law 1055, used to imprison opposition leaders, politicians and activists.
The capture occurs in a context of worsening governmental repression against opponents, which has left dozens of new political prisoners, and greater risk for their defense lawyers, who have denounced, under anonymity, being victims of harassment, threats and criminalization of their profession. With Oviedo, there are 31 Nicaraguans, including seven presidential candidates arrested in the latest wave of repression.
Oviedo participated last Sunday in the online Esta Semana program to analyze the violations of the rights of recent political prisoners, some with more than 60 days incommunicado from their relatives and lawyers.
The lawyer questioned the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code, which states that a person can be detained for up to 90 days for the purpose of “investigation,” which she considered unconstitutional and totally in violation of human rights, she said on that occasion.
La Policía detuvo a la abogada defensora de los presos políticos María del Socorro Oviedo Delgado es acusada de “traición a la patria”.https://t.co/ZZdthgIQGF
#Actualidad | Ministerio Público, bajo el mando del régimen de Daniel Ortega, informó en una nota de prensa que un juez sandinista ordenó 90 días de investigación para la abogada de la CPDH, María Oviedo. pic.twitter.com/Dye6IrUgdA
— ActualidadconDinoAndino (@DinoAndinoE) July 30, 2021
Iranian human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh is temporarily home from prison and speaking about her experiences as a political prisoner.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is home from prison on temporary medical leave. That is a simple thing to write, but there is so much emotion, strength, sacrifice, vision and history involved. And so much at stake in what will come next.
The internationally acclaimed Iranian human rights attorney was arrested in June 2018 because of her work representing opposition activists, religious minorities and women who publicly protested Iran’s mandatory hijab law. Nasrin was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on charges that included “inciting corruption and prostitution,” “disrupting public order,” “propaganda against the state” and “collusion against national security.” She had previously been imprisoned from 2010 to 2013 on similar charges—a heavy price to pay for loving one’s country.
Nelson Mandela said, “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.” The Iranian government’s persecution of Sotoudeh reflects a systemic disregard for the needs, rights and dignity of its citizens.
In August 2020, Nasrin launched a 46-day hunger strike in Evin Prison that brought global attention to poor health conditions in Iranian prisons. She was punished for her protest by being transferred, despite a serious heart condition, to an overcrowded windowless cell in the notoriously unsanitary Qarchak Women’s Prison.
Unsurprisingly, she quickly caught a severe case of COVID-19. She was briefly released in January for an overdue angioplasty, but on the day she was abruptly forced to return to prison, she was also informed the authorities had frozen her family’s bank accounts.
Now Nasrin is briefly back home with her husband Reza Khandan, their daughter Mehraveh, and their son Nima. They each live with the fear and uncertainty that the judicial system uses to psychologically break prisoners and their families. However, this is a family that will not be broken.
A few days after her homecoming, my wife Marcia Ross and I talked with Nasrin and Reza, translated by our mutual friend, writer Amir Soltani. We produced the documentary Nasrin, streaming on Hulu, and it has been a great life-changing privilege to become long-distance friends with this remarkable couple.
UPDATE: Iranian human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh is temporarily home from prison—and speaking out about her experiences as a political prisoner.https://t.co/rEUCR97Htg
This summer’s most riveting superhero movie has a female protagonist… It tells the gripping story of Nasrin Sotoudeh, one of the world’s most committed and courageous human rights lawyers and a key figure in Iran’s women’s rights movement.https://t.co/jvZyFMgAZ4
Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose health "seriously deteriorated" since her arrest 3 yrs ago, was granted a 5-day treatment leave from prison. Sotoudeh was sentenced for 38 1/2 years in prison and 148 lashes on spying & propaganda charges. https://t.co/oc7wYbX77V
#Justice | La #LDH se réjouit d’apprendre que Nasrin Sotoudeh, avocate spécialisée dans les droits humains, est temporairement relâchée. Continuons de nous battre pour rendre liberté à celles et ceux qui oeuvrent pour nos droits !https://t.co/Ul4f81nwk3
