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IRAN - WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS AT
RISK - PROTEST AT UN
By Gissou
Nia, Special to CNN
December
21, 2010
(CNN) -- Starting
this week, several of
Iranian authorities arrested Sotoudeh, one of
She has spent months in solitary confinement and has waged a hunger strike that has seriously debilitated her and made her husband, friends and colleagues fear for her life. The Iranian legal system, whose injustices Sotoudeh fearlessly championed against during the course of her career, has cruelly denied her the ultimate legal right: a fair trial.
Sadly,
Since the 2009 election in
During the presidency of Mohammad Khatami,
Since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, however, much of this progress has been repealed. Newspapers and NGOs were censored and shut down. As the repressive government under Ahmadinejad methodically rolled out its campaign of suppression of civil society, lawyers continued to challenge the government in the only remaining legal forum: the courts.
Despite these restrictions, the advocacy efforts of these attorneys provided a means to secure human rights gains. Savvy lawyers who were familiar with the system could mitigate punishment for their clients by securing lower sentences or avoiding an execution sentence on death penalty cases.
Although these advocates worked within the system, they became the direct targets of the government.
As journalists, bloggers, activists, academics, unionists and others who work to combat human rights abuses were deemed "anti-revolutionaries" and tried in "Revolutionary" courts by the Iranian government, their legal counsels were correspondingly labeled as opposition. Sometimes, they were considered accomplices to the alleged illegal activities of their clients.
Following the disputed June 2009 election, in which hundreds of members of perceived government opposition were rounded up by Iranian authorities, the risks to lawyers dramatically increased.
Although representation of clients on politically motivated cases previously placed an attorney's legal career in jeopardy, now performance of these services placed lawyers in personal jeopardy.
Prominent criminal defense lawyers, including Abdolfattah Soltani, Shadi Sadr and Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, were arrested in increasing numbers and forced to terminate their legal representation of human rights and civil activists detained during the post-election unrest.
In recent months, the arrest, imprisonment and sentencing of lawyers on prominent case files including Sotoudeh, Houtan Kian, Mohammad Seifzadeh and others demonstrate that the Iranian government's targeting of lawyers shows no sign of abating.
Today,
In 2009 and 2010, governmental representatives in
This trend is dangerous, because history shows that an
independent judiciary and its lawyers often function as the last refuge for the
protection of human rights in civil society. Without legal recourse, the human
rights situation in a country declines rapidly. In
The attack on independent lawyers in
As Sotoudeh's colleagues stage their sit-in in