Nasrin Sotoudeh’s Husband Charged With National Security Crimes For Anti-Compulsory Hijab Activism
Sotoudeh’s Sister Threatened With Arrest
Imprisoned Iranian attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, has been charged with national security crimes for peacefully supporting his wife and a woman’s right to appear in public without a hijab.
Khandan, who, like his wife is also a human rights activist, has been charged with “assembly and collusion against national security” and “promoting non-observance of the hijab,” his lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, stated in an Instagram post.
“Today, October 6th, [2018] my client contacted me from Evin Prison and informed me that the authorities tried to transfer him to Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court for a trial, but he wisely reminded them that according to the law, he and his lawyer should have been informed at least a week in advance and therefore he refused to show up in court,” Moghimi wrote.
Khandan has been detained since September 4, after he was arrested for posting a series of updates about his detained wife’s case on Facebook.
The authorities of Evin Prison in Tehran, where the couple is being held in separate wards, also threatened to arrest Giti Sotoudeh, Nasrin Sotoudeh’s sister, after she objected to being banned from visiting the attorney.
Giti Sotoudeh was reminded of the ban, which was imposed on Nasrin Sotoudeh in September 2018 after she refused to receive visitors draped head to toe in a hijab when she went to the prison on October 7.
“When Ms. Sotoudeh’s sister objected to this situation, she was threatened that she, too, would be arrested,” said the source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals against the Sotoudeh family for speaking out told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
Sotoudeh has been detained since June 13, 2018, when security agents transported her from her home to Evin Prison in Tehran. Once inside the prison, she learned she would be serving a five-year prison sentence issued to her in absentia by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh in 2015 and that she was facing multiple other charges.
On September 29, one of her lawyers, Payam Derafshan, announced he had filed a lawsuit against Judge Moghiseh, the head of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran and the judge presiding over Sotoudeh’s case, accusing him of unlawful sentencing.
Having established himself as a judge that bends to the wishes of state officials and security agencies in cases involving political charges, Moghiseh is also responsible for sentencing numerous peaceful activists, dissidents and minorities to long prison terms under trumped-up national security charges.
