Iranian authorities have told Nasrin Sotoudeh that she must serve a five-year jail sentence despite not having stood trial and on charges that have not been revealed to her

She is a prominent human rights lawyer but a critic of the regime in Iran. Apparently, her only offence was that Nasrin Sotoudeh recently defended women activists who removed headscarves.

The 55-year-old human rights lawyer was taken from her home in Tehran on Wednesday after security agents forced their way into her building.



Reza Khandan, her husband, said he believed his wife was being held in a temporary detention centre at Tehran’s infamous Evin prison.

He continued, “She was on her own around noon, other residents in the building had to let the agents in, they then knocked on our door and came in. They told my wife, ‘You have a five-year sentence against you and we have come to arrest you for that’. They did show an arrest warrant but nothing was shown regarding the sentence.”