An appeals court in Iran has reduced the prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh’s jail sentence to six years, her husband said.
The 45-year-old lawyer, who has represented several political activists and protesters arrested in recent years, has been kept in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since last September. In Evin, she is spending time with some of the prisoners she defended in court. She was originally sentenced in January to 11 years in jail and banned for 20 years from working as a lawyer or travelling abroad, for the offences of “acting against the national security”, “propaganda against the regime” and “membership of Human Rights Defenders Centre” – a rights organisation presided over by the Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. Speaking by phone from Tehran, Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan said that his wife’s ban from working as a lawyer had been reduced to 10 years.
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