Her husband, Reza Khandan, has been imprisoned since December for supporting women’s rights. Her son, Nima, was beaten by prison guards during a recent visit to see his father. Yet Iranian Right Livelihood Laureate Nasrin Sotoudeh is steadfast in her demand for respect for human rights in the Islamic Republic.
“When it comes to human rights in Iran, we can always begin by saying, well, the situation is terrible, the conditions are horrible, and so forth, but that’s nothing new,” Sotoudeh said in a recent interview with Right Livelihood. “We are constantly living under the shadow of fatwas and sticks that are held above us and used to threaten us.”
Yet, despite the harsh conditions, she zeroed in on two issues in particular that she sees as instrumental to upholding human rights: ending capital punishment and compulsory veiling.
“First and foremost, I call attention to stopping executions in Iran,” she said. “Executions, particularly political executions, have a dramatic and instant impact on Iran’s political culture.”
When the numbers of political executions increase, so do executions related to murder or drugs, she explained. Iran executed 975 people in 2024, the highest number in 17 years, according to a report released last week by Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty.
When it comes to mandatory veiling for women, Sotoudeh said it was an instrument to “establish hegemony over society.”
“If we want to recognise human rights, one of the first things that we need to recognise is women’s rights and particularly their right to exercise control over their body,” she said.
Sotoudeh has been at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in Iran for decades. Her work has centred on insisting that the Islamic Republic applies proper legal procedures to all citizens, including prisoners of conscience, and abides by its international commitments regarding human rights and women’s equality.
For her work, Sotoudeh has paid a high price, spending several years in prison. In 2019, she was sentenced to 38 and a half years in prison and 148 lashes. It was later reduced to 27 years, of which she would have to serve ten. She has spent three and a half years in prison and is currently on medical furlough, though she still faces the risk of reimprisonment.
“Four months ago, when I saw the doctors, they said, basically because of my heart condition, I would lack the capacity to endure prison,” she said. “Technically, that should have led to them essentially voiding my sentence and freeing me. But that hasn’t happened. I’m not free. And, of course, my husband, Reza, was arrested two months ago, and he’s in prison, so our family continues to be under pressure.”
Reza was arrested in December after receiving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence six years ago. His crime? He hand-made button pins with a single sentence: “I oppose the mandatory hijab.”
The deplorable lack of women’s rights in Iran was brought to the forefront in 2022 when protests under the banner of “Woman, Life, Freedom” broke out in response to the killing of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody. The government responded by cracking down on protesters and proposing new chastity and veiling laws.
Reza was arrested the same day a new set of such laws was set to be voted on in the Iranian Parliament. Sotoudeh and other women’s rights activists were vocal about opposing the new legislation.
“They didn’t pass the law, but instead what happened? The arrest of Reza,” Sotoudeh said.
Since his arrest, Reza has been on hunger strike twice. First, to oppose the unsanitary conditions in prison. The second time, when his communication with his family was cut off after prison guards assaulted his son, Nima.
Nima, 17, was set to see his father in person during a visit. However, as he entered the notorious Evin prison, where political prisoners are held, he was told that he would only be allowed to see his father through a glass wall and communicate with him via telephone. Nima is no stranger to talking to loved ones like this: he was three years old when his father started taking him to prison to visit his mother.
When Nima questioned the guards, they attacked him, ripping out his earring, and kicking and beating him on his chest, back and stomach. Sotoudeh, barred from entering prison for refusing to wear a veil, was shocked by the sight. As she expressed outrage over the violence against Nima, guards drew their guns on them.
“It’s a tremendous violence that was suddenly directed at Nima in particular, but really the family as a whole,” she said. “It’s pretty clear that it was all quite premeditated.”
Nima cannot go back to the prison for fear for his safety.
“Not seeing Reza, not seeing his father, is really quite a strain and quite painful for Nima,” Sotoudeh said. “The bond between them is very strong.”
Yet, neither Sotoudeh nor her husband are giving up their fight. In a letter from prison, Reza wrote, “I am still the same person who objects to the compulsory hijab.”
Why do they not surrender?
“What we do is really for all our children,” Sotoudeh replied. “That’s why we continue so that this shadow doesn’t fall on them, so they can have a normal life.”
She added that both Nima and her daughter Mehraveh support her and Reza’s fight for democracy and human rights in Iran.
“After this latest incident, I told him [Nima] about how sad and sorry I was, that perhaps I should have never started down this path,” Sotoudeh recalled. “But he said to me, ‘No, Mom, you should have stood for what you believed, and I am happy that you did.’”
Besides her family and the Iranian legal and human rights community’s support, international solidarity has also been essential.
“Despite a very severe prison sentence, the reason I am out right now is because of such pressures and support,” she said. “So that kind of solidarity, compassion, awareness and pressure make a tremendous difference.”
