The husband, Reza Khandan, described the sentences in a Facebook post on Monday, saying that she had received a five-year prison term in one case and a sentence of 33 years in another. She was also sentenced to 148 lashes, he said.

A report the same day from a state-funded news outlet, the Iranian Students’ News Agency, quoted a hard-line judge, Mohammad Moghiseh, as saying that he had sentenced Ms. Sotoudeh to a total of seven years in prison and mentioning two charges, of taking part in an illegal assembly and collusion against the state.

According to the Center for Human Rights statement, however, the first case in which Ms. Sotoudeh had been sentenced appeared to relate to a 2015 trial conducted in her absence. Her husband told the center that she had faced at least seven charges in the second case, among them propaganda against the state, disturbing public peace and order, appearing in court without a head scarf, and encouraging corruption and prostitution.

“I don’t know how many years she got for each of the charges because my conversation with Nasrin only lasted a few minutes and we didn’t get to the details,” the center quoted Mr. Khandan as saying. “I only know that the biggest sentence was 12 years,” he said, for the charge of encouraging corruption and prostitution.

“This verdict shows that making statements in our country comes with such a high price that an attorney can be sentenced to 44 years for it,” he told the center.</s>by Center for Human Rights in Iran

Iranian defense attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh told her husband she has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Her statement follows media reports quoting the hardline judge overseeing her case who said she has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

“Sotoudeh has been sentenced in a Kafkaesque trial severely lacking in international standards of due process,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

“The Iranian Judiciary is punishing Sotoudeh for trying to uphold the rule of law and the right to a fair defense in cases involving defendants facing politically motivated charges,” he added.

“First they went after the journalists, activists and dissidents,” he said. “Now they’re going after their only line of defense.”

Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on Facebook on March 11, 2019, that his wife has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes (five years for one case and 33 years for a second case involving a combined total of nine charges). In January 2019 Khandan was also sentenced to six years in prison.

During a brief phone conversation with her husband, Sotoudeh insisted that her sentence is 38 years in prison and 148 lashes and should be reported in its original form regardless of whether it is later reduced.

“I don’t know how many years she got for each of the charges because my conversation with Nasrin only lasted a few minutes and we didn’t get to the details,” Khandan told CHRI. “I only know that the biggest sentence was 12 years for [encouraging people to] ‘corruption and prostitution.’”

The first sentence of five years appears based on a 2015 case in which she was tried in absentia by hardline Judge Mohammad Moghiseh.

Khandan told CHRI the second sentence is based on seven charges: “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center, the Legam group (against capital punishment), and the National Peace Council,” “encouraging people to corruption and prostitution,” “appearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab,” “disturbing public peace and order” and “publishing falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion.”

Sotoudeh was tried in absentia in Tehran on December 30, 2018, at Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh who is known for issuing harsh sentences in cases involving politically motivated charges.

On March 11, Moghisheh told a state-funded media outlet that Sotoudeh has been sentenced to seven years in prison. He did not elaborate but his comment could have been based on Article 134 of the Penal Code, which states that in cases involving multiple convictions, one should serve no more than the maximum punishment for the charge that carries the heaviest sentence.

Khandan said: “All I can say is that it’s shameful for Iran’s judicial system to issue such a heavy sentence against a human rights activist. This verdict shows that making statements in our country comes with such a high price that an attorney can be sentenced to 44 years for it. I say 44 years because in 2010 she was sentenced to six years in prison for similar charges… This sentence is unjust, illogical and unusual.”

Sotoudeh, 55, has been detained since June 13, 2018, after security agents unexpectedly appeared at her home and took her to Evin Prison in Tehran.

An outspoken human rights advocate with several international accolades, she previously served three years in prison from 2010-2013 and was released after years of campaigning for her freedom by international human rights organizations.

Sotoudeh was re-imprisoned after defending women who were arrested for protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law. She has also publicly criticized the judiciary’s decision to force detainees facing politically motivated charges to choose their counsel from a list of lawyers approved by the judiciary.

Sotoudeh is among at least seven human rights attorneys who were arrested in Iran in 2018 in a widening crackdown aimed at further restricting detainees’ right to counsel.

“By trying to make an example out of this courageous human rights attorney, the Iranian judiciary is making a mockery out of any notion of ‘justice’ in Iran,” said Ghaemi.

Reprinted, with permission, from Center for Human Rights in Iran.</s>Tehran: Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to seven years in jail for security offences, a judge at Tehran's Revolutionary Court told semi-official ISNA news agency on Monday.

The seven-year verdict could be the tip of the iceberg in a much harsher sentence that amounts to 38 years in prison, according to a Facebook post by her husband Reza Khandan.

"Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to five years for colluding against the system and two years for insulting the leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)," said judge Mohammad Moghiseh to ISNA.

The case has since been referred to the court of appeal, he added.

According to Mohammad Moghimi, one of Sotoudeh's lawyers, she chose not to be represented in court because the case did not adhere to the "principles of a fair trial".

Sotoudeh is an award-winning rights activist who was arrested last June and told she had already been found guilty in absentia of espionage charges and sentenced to five years by the court.

While the sentences announced so far total 12 years, Sotoudeh's husband said Monday she had been condemned to "38 years in prison and 148 lashes".

"Five years of prison for the first case, and 33 years with 148 lashes for the second," Khandan wrote on Facebook.

He did not clarify whether the latter sentence referred to the case reported by ISNA on Monday, or additional verdicts not yet made public.

Before her arrest, Sotoudeh, 55, had taken on the cases of several women arrested for appearing in public without headscarves in protest at the mandatory dress code in force in Iran.

Sotoudeh won the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov Prize in 2012 for her work on high-profile cases, including those of convicts on death row for offences committed as minors.

She spent three years in prison after representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed re-election of the ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.</s>The United States has condemned the new prison sentences reportedly imposed on Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh “in the strongest possible terms.”

“We are outraged to hear reports that the Iranian regime sentenced...Sotoudeh to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes,” State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said on March 12.

 

 “This sentence is beyond barbaric,” he added.

Meanwhile, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, accused the Iranian government of stepping up its “repression” of human rights activists, lawyers, and trade unionists.

 

 Sotoudeh has been sentenced to an extra 10 years in prison on top of the five-year term she is currently serving, according to her husband.

 

 Reza Khandan told the AFP news agency on March 12 that the new 10-year sentence was the longest of seven verdicts totaling 33 years in prison and communicated to Sotoudeh in prison.

 

 It brings the lawyer’s total sentence after what rights groups called two “grossly unfair” trials to 38 years.

 

 But Khandan said that "only the longest sentence [in the latest case] will be served.”

 

 He said Sotoudeh had also been sentenced to a total of 148 lashes for appearing in court without a head scarf and for another offense.

 

 The lawyer had been found guilty of charges including “'encouraging corruption and debauchery,” "colluding [and] propaganda against the system,” and “disrupting public order," according to Khandan.

 

 Earlier this week, a judge at Tehran's Revolutionary Court said that Sotoudeh had been sentenced in her latest conviction to five years for “colluding against the system” and two years for “insulting” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

 Sotoudeh, the co-winner of the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, was arrested in June 2018 and ordered to serve a five-year sentence imposed on her in absentia in 2016.

 

 The lawyer in 2018 represented several of the women detained for removing their head scarves in public to protest against the country’s Islamic dress code.

 

 An outspoken critic of the Iranian establishment, Sotoudeh previously spent three years in prison on security charges after representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

 

 She has denied all charges against her.

 

 Speaking at a press briefing in Washington, Palladino said that Sotoudeh was sentenced in absentia “without a fair trial by the notorious revolutionary court, which is led by Judge Moghiseh, an accused human rights violator.”

 

 He said that the United States is calling on “all of our partners and allies to speak out and demand the release of this courageous human rights defender and all those arbitrarily detained immediately.”

 

 “The Iranian regime makes a mockery of the entire legal system in Iran, placing innocent people at the mercy of accused human rights violators,” he added.

 

 Khamenei last week appointed Ebrahim Raisi, a controversial hard-line cleric accused of gross human rights violations, as head of the country's influential Judiciary.

 

 In Geneva, Rehman called the latest case against Sotoudeh "a crystal-clear illustration of an increasingly severe state response."

 

 Speaking on the sidelines of a UN Human Rights Council session, Rehman said that there was “an increasing concern that the civil space for human rights lawyers and defenders is being reduced."

 

 "It is deeply concerning. There is deepening repression," he told journalists.

 

 A spokeswoman for the European Commission called for an immediate review of Sotoudeh’s case, saying that her trial featured "a number of other violations of the right to due process."

 

 Amnesty International condemned the case against Sotoudeh as an “outrageous injustice,” while Human Rights Watch called the it “a threat aimed at every human rights advocate in Iran to stop defending human rights.”</s>(Hatha al-Youm | Iraq News )- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Rights groups and the European Parliament expressed outrage following the chilling news from Tehran that the outspoken Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 38 years in prison in a “Kafkaesque trial” for her human rights work.Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan published the news on his Facebook page on March 11 which prompted Amnesty International to state: “This is the harshest sentence Amnesty International has documented against a human rights defender in Iran in recent years, suggesting that the authorities – emboldened by pervasive impunity for human rights violations – are stepping up their repression.” Sotoudeh, a former political prisoner, has campaigned tirelessly against the death penalty and defended many human rights activists, women and rights campaigners from ethnic minorities is respected internationally for her dedication to human rights.A shocking 38 years in prison for Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh for defending women who didn't want to wear mandatory headscarves and other such "outrages." https://t.co/qKIFpJWSRe pic.twitter.com/JrokmeYl8v— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) March 11, 2019She was arrested in June and was informed this week that she had been found guilty of seven charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. The vague charges included “Inciting corruption and prostitution,” “openly committing a sinful act by … appearing in public without a hijab” and “disrupting public order.” The judge used his discretion to apply more than the maximum sentence in her case.Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament said on Twitter “I strongly condemn utterly outrageous Iranian government sentence passed against #SakharovPrize laureate, Nasrin Sotoudeh. She's dedicated her life to defending women's rights and speaking out against the #deathpenalty. The @Europarl_EN stands with her – at Le Parlement Européen”Local human rights organizations have also criticized the lack of a proper trial in-line with international norms.“Sotoudeh has been sentenced in a Kafkaesque trial severely lacking in international standards of due process,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “The Iranian Judiciary is punishing Sotoudeh for trying to uphold the rule of law and the right to a fair defense in cases involving defendants facing politically motivated charges,” he added. Sotoudeh won the European Parliament Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2012 while in prison for not bowing to “fear and intimidation.” She was jailed from 2010 to 2013 on charges of propaganda and conspiring to harm the establishment’s security.“The EU expects an immediate review of her sentence as well as the conviction of her husband Reza Khandan, who was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment in January 2019. The European Union also expects Iran to ensure that both Mr. Khandan and Ms. Sotoudeh's right to appeal their sentences is protected,” the spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, Maja Kocijancic, said in a statement. She has been targeted by the state since 2009 when she was an advisor to reformist Mehdi Karroubi during the presidential election. Then she was arrested and detained for three years after being charged with anti-state propaganda. Her most recent detainment began in June 2018, according to CHRI, because she represented a woman facing imprisonment for peacefully protesting the country's compulsory hijab law.Shahidi has also sued the Iranian judiciary for banning her from seeing her family and children while she has been jailed in the notorious Evin Prison.</s>The United States on Tuesday condemned reports that the Iranian government sentenced human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh’s to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. On Monday, Amnesty International demanded her immediate release and a quashing of her sentence.

Her husband Reza Khandan, on Facebook, said the verdict increases her imprisonment tenure to 38 years. In September 2016, she had been sentenced to five years in prison in another case.

US State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said the administration is outraged to hear reports about the sentencing. “This sentence is beyond barbaric,” Palladino said. “Her alleged crime was advocating for Iranian women’s rights and for defending other Iranian women who were arrested by the regime for peacefully protesting the mandatory hijab law. Nasrin was sentenced in absentia without a fair trial by the notorious revolutionary court, which is led by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh, an accused human rights violator.”

Washington demanded her immediate release. “The Iranian people deserve a government that respects their legitimate demands and the human rights of all in Iran, not one that subjects them to prosecution in a justice system led by accused human rights violators,” Palladino said.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy director, described the sentencing as the harshest against a human rights defender in Iran in the recent years. “Her conviction and sentence consolidate Iran’s reputation as a cruel oppressor of women’s rights,” he said.

Sotoudeh was arrested at her home on in June 2018. The charges against her include “inciting corruption and prostitution”, “openly committing a sinful act by... appearing in public without a hijab” and “disrupting public order”.

The organisation has urged “governments with influence over Iran” to lobby for her release. “The international community, notably the European Union, which has an ongoing dialogue with Iran, must take a strong public stand against this disgraceful conviction and urgently intervene to ensure that she is released immediately and unconditionally.”

Meanwhile, the organisation said that the Islamic Republic News Agency had quoted Moghiseh as saying that Sotoudeh has been sentenced to seven years in prison for “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security” and “insulting the Supreme Leader”.

In 2012, she won the European Parliament’s Sakharov rights award in 2012 for her work on high-profile rights and political cases. She has several defended journalists and activists, including Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.</s>Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence on Monday which her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran's supreme leader, her lawyer said.

She was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security, charges she denied, and was released after serving half her six-year term.

The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov human rights prize.

A judge at a revolutionary court in Tehran, Mohammad Moqiseh, said on Monday Sotoudeh had been sentenced to five years for assembling against national security and two years for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Sotoudeh's husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on Facebook that the sentence was decades in jail and 148 lashes, unusually harsh even for Iran which cracks down hard on dissent and regularly imposes death sentences for some crimes.

The news comes days after Iran appointed a new head of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric who is a protégé of Khamenei.

The appointment is seen as weakening the political influence of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate.

Iran, often accused of human rights abuse, said on Monday it had allowed UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore to visit last week at the head of a “technic al mission”.

The visit, confirmed by a UN official, appeared to be the first in many years by UN human rights investigators who have been denied access by the government.

The UN investigator on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, raised Sotoudeh's case at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, saying that last week she "was reportedly convicted of charges relating to her work and could face a lengthy prison sentence."

“Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labour rights activists signal an increasingly severe state response,” Rehman said.

This article has been adapted from its original source.</s>Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to an extra 10 years in jail on top of the five-year term she is already serving, her husband Reza Khandan said on Tuesday.

Sotoudeh is an award-winning rights activist who was arrested last June and told she had been found guilty in absentia of espionage charges and sentenced to five years.

The new 10-year sentence is the longest of seven different verdicts totaling 33 years bundled together in a case and communicated to Sotoudeh in prison, according to Khandan.

“But only the longest sentence will be served, which is ‘encouraging corruption and debauchery and providing the means’,” he told AFP by telephone.

He said Sotoudeh has also been sentenced to a total of 148 lashes for appearing in court without the hijab Islamic head covering and for another charge.

She had been found guilty of “colluding against the system, propaganda against the system... disrupting public order” and on several other counts.

On Monday, a judge at Tehran’s Revolutionary Court said she had been sentenced in her latest conviction to five years for colluding against the system and two years for insulting Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

ALSO READ: Iran rights lawyer Sotoudeh sentenced to 7 years in jail

But Khandan said that to the best of his knowledge his wife had not been charged with insulting the leader.

Amnesty International condemned the latest case against Sotoudeh as an “outrageous injustice” and called for her immediate and unconditional release.

“Nasrin Sotoudeh has dedicated her life to defending women’s rights and speaking out against the death penalty - it is utterly outrageous that Iran’s authorities are punishing her for her human rights work,” it said.

Before her arrest, Sotoudeh, 55, had taken on the cases of several women arrested for appearing in public without headscarves in protest at the mandatory dress code in force in Iran.

Sotoudeh won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize in 2012 for her work on high-profile cases, including those of convicts on death row for offenses committed as minors.

She spent three years in prison after representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed re-election of ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</s>The United States and human rights groups have strongly criticized the decades-long prison sentence reportedly imposed on Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

 

 Iranian media on March 11 quoted a judge as saying that Sotoudeh, who has been in prison since June serving a five-year sentence, was given two additional years for “insulting” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

 But Sotoudeh's husband, Reza Khandan, disputed that and said that an additional 33 years in prison and 148 lashes had been added to her existing sentence.

 

 It brings the lawyer’s total sentence after two “grossly unfair” trials to 38 years in prison, Amnesty International said, describing the latest sentencing as “utterly outrageous.”

 

 New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the “draconian” sentence “an appalling travesty of justice” and “a threat aimed at every human rights advocate in Iran to stop defending human rights.”

 

 U.S. State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino wrote on Twitter that the new sentence was announced “while the rest of the world commemorates women’s rights,” referring to International Women’s Day on March 8.

 

 “Is this the ‘new era of justice’ Khamenei proudly preaches about?” he added.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission called for an immediate review of the case, saying that Sotoudeh’s trial at Tehran's Revolutionary Court “went ahead in her absence" and featured "a number of other violations of the right to due process."

 

 "The recent conviction of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh to at least seven years' imprisonment is a worrying development," the spokeswoman said.

 

 Last week, Mohammad Moghimi, who had represented Sotoudeh in other cases, wrote on his social-media account that that she was convicted of seven charges including “assembly and collusion against national security,” “encouraging corruption and prostitution,” “appearing at the judiciary without the Islamic hijab,” “disturbing public peace and order,” and “publishing falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion.”

 

 Sotoudeh, the co-winner of the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, was arrested in June 2018 and ordered to serve a five-year sentence imposed on her in absentia in 2016.

The lawyer in 2018 represented several of the women detained for removing their head scarves in public to protest against the country’s Islamic dress code.

 

 An outspoken critic of the Iranian establishment, Sotoudeh previously spent three years in prison on security charges after representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

 

 She has denied all charges against her.

 

 Khandan was sentenced to six years in jail, also for security-related charges, his lawyer Mohammad Moghimi and local media said in January.

 

 He later appealed the ruling and was released on bail.</s>TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to an extra 10 years in jail on top of the five-year term she is already serving, her husband said Tuesday.

Sotoudeh is an award-winning rights activist who was arrested last June and told she had been found guilty in absentia of espionage charges and sentenced to five years.

The new 10-year sentence was the longest of seven verdicts totaling 33 years bundled together and communicated to Sotoudeh in prison, according to her husband, Reza Khandan.

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“But only the longest sentence will be served, which is ‘encouraging corruption and debauchery and providing the means,'” he told AFP by telephone.

He said Sotoudeh had also been sentenced to a total of 148 lashes for appearing in court without the hijab Islamic head covering and for another offense.

She had been found guilty of “colluding against the system, propaganda against the system… disrupting public order” and several other counts.

On Monday, a judge at Tehran’s Revolutionary Court said Sotoudeh had been sentenced in her latest conviction to five years for colluding against the system and two years for insulting Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Khandan said that to the best of his knowledge his wife had not been charged with insulting the leader.

The United Nations’ top expert on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, said the reported conviction was “a crystal-clear illustration of an increasingly severe state response.”

“There is an increasing concern that the civil space for human rights lawyers and defenders is being reduced,” he told journalists in Geneva.

Amnesty International condemned the latest case against Sotoudeh as an “outrageous injustice” and called for her immediate and unconditional release.

“Nasrin Sotoudeh has dedicated her life to defending women’s rights and speaking out against the death penalty — it is utterly outrageous that Iran’s authorities are punishing her for her human rights work,” it said.

The United States, which has made Iran its biggest foe in the Middle East, said it condemned the sentence “in the strongest possible terms.”

Before her arrest, Sotoudeh, 55, had taken on the cases of several women arrested for appearing in public without headscarves in protest at the mandatory dress code in force in Iran.

Sotoudeh won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize in 2012 for her work on high-profile cases, including those of convicts on death row for offences committed as minors.

She spent three years in prison after representing dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed re-election of ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iranian human rights activist and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who won the Sakharov Prize in 2012, is sentenced to 38 years in prison for her defence of women who had been arrested after removing their hijabs.