Nasrin Sotoudeh

Iranian human rights lawyer challenging gender apartheid through legal activism

Nasrin Sotoudeh (born 1963) has become Iran's most prominent human rights attorney, specializing in defending women prosecuted for removing hijabs. Her landmark 2018 defense of Narges Mohammadi exposed systematic gender discrimination in Iranian courts.

After being sentenced to 38 years imprisonment and 148 lashes in 2019, Sotoudeh's hunger strikes drew global attention. The European Parliament awarded her the 2020 Sakharov Prize while imprisoned. Her legal strategies creatively use Iran's own constitution to challenge compulsory hijab laws.

Sotoudeh's prison writings have been smuggled out as samizdat literature. She continues to advise activists through clandestine letters, proving that even incarceration cannot silence dissent.