A distinguished Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested and severely overwhelmed, her husband mentioned on Monday — one among a number of activists taken into custody on the funeral in Tehran of a lady who was fatally injured after a reported confrontation with the enforcers of Iran’s strict costume code for girls.
The activists had been arrested on Sunday on the funeral of Armita Geravand, a 16-year-old who died final week following what many consider was an encounter over not masking her hair on Tehran’s subway, in defiance of the legislation imposed by the Shiite Islamic authorities.
Ms. Sotoudeh, 60, is famend for representing girls who haven’t worn a hijab, the standard head scarf, whereas in public, and for refusing to put on one herself. She has been imprisoned a number of instances, and most just lately had been convicted at a secret trial in 2019 of security-related crimes, however was launched in 2021 as a result of she suffers from coronary heart illness and different illnesses.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, mentioned in an interview she had referred to as him in the course of the evening to inform him what had occurred, together with that her glasses had been damaged in custody.
“I believe the damaged glasses say sufficient. Nasrin additionally confirmed the beating and talked about that it was unhealthy,” he mentioned. When she was taken for a court docket look Monday morning, he introduced an intact pair of her glasses, he added, however the guards refused to offer them to her.
Then she was transferred to Qarchak, a infamous girls’s jail outdoors Tehran.
The Fars Information Company, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, accused Ms. Sotoudeh of “violating hijab guidelines” and “performing towards the psychological safety of society,” an offense that in accordance with the Heart for Human Rights in Iran doesn’t exist in Iran’s penal code.
“I’ve heard that Nasrin had refused to put on a hijab till the final second earlier than attending the listening to at Evin court docket,” Mr. Khandan mentioned.
She had centered just lately on her medical care and her household, not activism, “but Armita’s case affected her deeply and she or he couldn’t keep silent,” he mentioned. “She already packed her jail suitcase earlier than leaving to attend the funeral.”
The case of Ms. Geravand stays murky. Iranian state tv has broadcast safety digicam video of her stepping onto a subway prepare together with her hair uncovered on Oct. 1, after which being carried off the prepare minutes later, apparently unconscious. The authorities haven’t launched video from contained in the subway automobile.
Farzad Seifikaran, a journalist with Radio Zamaneh, reported that witnesses mentioned that after officers implementing the costume code confronted Ms. Geravand and two mates, one of many officers pushed her and she or he struck her head, inflicting a cerebral hemorrhage. The federal government mentioned that she collapsed from low blood sugar as a result of she had skipped breakfast.
She was declared brain-dead on Oct. 23, as reported by state-owned media.
Her case has drawn parallels to that of Mahsa Amini, who died final 12 months within the custody of the “morality police” who had arrested her, charging that she had violated the hijab legislation. Her demise prompted a number of the largest protests in additional than 4 a long time of theocratic rule, which Iran’s safety forces suppressed violently, inflicting a whole bunch of deaths, in accordance with human rights teams.
