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Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who began a hunger strike more than a month ago, was transferred from prison to a hospital in Tehran after a “severe deterioration” in her health, according to her husband.
Sotoudeh, winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament, is serving a 12-year prison sentence in Evin prison in Tehran, handed down last year against the lawyer who defended women arrested for protesting against laws on the imposition of the veil.
Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, told Agence France-Presse on Saturday that Sotoudeh had been admitted to the cardiac care unit of Taleqani Hospital in the Iranian capital shortly after her arrival at the emergency department today.
He explained: “We were allowed to see her for some time (…) Her condition deteriorated dramatically, she lost a lot of weight and her eyes were sunken.”
Khandan had previously reported that Sotoudeh had started a hunger strike on August 11. And it released a statement saying that conditions for political prisoners are becoming more difficult, especially in light of concerns over the spread of the new Corona virus, that the Islamic Republic is the worst affected country in the Middle East region.
“Covid-19” killed more than 24,000 people and injured another 420,000, according to the latest official figures released by the Iranian Health Ministry on Saturday.
Sotoudeh, 57, said his strike is to secure the release of political prisoners who did not benefit from the waivers that allowed the release of tens of thousands of other convicts following the spread of “Covid-19,” after the the judiciary did not respond to their written pleas.
The lawyer’s husband expressed concern about his wife’s state of health in the hospital, considering that the latter “is not a safe place in relation to the coronavirus” and lacks “adequate isolation procedures.”
Khandan, who returned from the hospital around midnight on Saturday, stressed that what his wife is experiencing is “very difficult”, noting that the authorities overseeing the prison “do not cooperate and do not respond adequately when we ask them about the state. of the prisoners. They didn’t even inform us of their transfer to the hospital. ” .
She noted that the family learned of Nasreen’s transfer for treatment through one of the prisoners who informed her husband, and he in turn contacted Khandan and informed him of that.
