The European Film Academy and the Berlin International Film Festival issued a statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of writer, human rights lawyer, and activist Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018 and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.
Statement:
The European Film Academy and the Berlin International Film Festival call for the immediate and unconditional release of writer, human rights lawyer, and activist Nasrin Sotoudeh
She is the last passenger in Jafar Panahi’s TAXI TEHERAN, winner of the Golden Bear, where she openly talks about her commitment to political prisoners and takes the audience by storm with her energetic and joyful way. Together with the director, Nasrin Sotoudeh won the European Parliament’s 2012 Sakharov Prize. She is one of Iran’s most prominent voices of conscience and has long been targeted by the Iranian government.
Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018 on ambiguous charges connected to her work as an attorney and was sentenced to over 30 years in jail and 148 whiplashes. She is currently being held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran where she has begun a second hunger strike on 11 August to protest the regime’s refusal to release political prisoners during the pandemic. She is now in critical condition must be released immediately to seek medical care.
We call on the Iranian authorities to drop all charges against Sotoudeh and to immediately release her from prison and into medical care.
We also encourage all film and culture institutions around the world to do the same and ask everyone to sign PEN’s petition for the release of Nasrin Sotoudeh.
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