Lawyer Nasrin Sotoude was arrested and brutally beaten during the funeral of teenager Armita Geravand, who – according to opposition circles – died after the intervention of the Iranian morality police. This was announced by the husband of the Iranian activist. Nasrin Sotoude is a Sakharov Prize winner.
As reported by the state-owned Fars agency, the reasons for the arrest were “failure to wear a hijab” – a scarf that tightly covers the hair – and disturbing “social peace.” Sotoude was detained on Sunday during the funeral of a teenager who had been in a coma for a month earlier. In the opinion of opposition circles Armita Geravand died as a result of being beaten by Iranian moral police.
The girl’s death occurred just over a year after the murder Mahsy Amini, detained for not wearing a hijab and then beaten at the police station. This tragic event triggered a months-long wave of demonstrations, brutally suppressed by the authorities in Tehran.
Nasrin SotoudeGettyImages
60-year-old Nasrin Sotoude was the head of the Center for Human Rights Defenders – an Iranian organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. She is a winner of the Sakharov Prize, awarded since 1988 by European parliament to honor the people and organizations defending it human rights and fundamental freedoms. A lawyer who defended imprisoned activists and minors sentenced to death was herself sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2010 for “spreading hostile propaganda” and “conspiring against public safety.”
The legal requirement for women to cover their heads and necks in public places was introduced after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, since Amini’s death, women are increasingly disregarding the strict dress codes in force in the Islamic Republic, the AFP agency recalled.
Main photo source: GettyImages