Iran - human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to a shocking 33 years in prison and 148 lashes.

The sentence, reported on her husband Reza Khandan’s Facebook page, brings her total sentence after two grossly unfair trials, to 38 years in prison. In September 2016, she was sentenced in her absence to five years in prison in a separate case. 

The latest sentence is the harshest sentence Amnesty has documented against a human rights defender in Iran in recent years, suggesting that the authorities are stepping up their repression.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, said: “It is absolutely shocking that Nasrin Sotoudeh is facing nearly four decades in jail and 148 lashes for her peaceful human rights work, including her defence of women protesting against Iran’s degrading forced hijab (veiling) laws.” 

Sotoudeh was recently informed by the office for the implementation of sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison where she is jailed, that she had been convicted on seven charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. The charges, which are in response to her peaceful human rights work, include “inciting corruption and prostitution”, “openly committing a sinful act by ... appearing in public without a hijab” and “disrupting public order”. 

Meanwhile, in a confusing development, earlier today the Islamic Republic News Agency reported that Mohammad Moghiseh told journalists that Sotoudeh has been sentenced to seven years in prison: five years for “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security” and two years for “insulting the Supreme Leader”. 

This report did not provide further details or clarify whether the judge was referring to a separate case.

 “Nasrin Sotoudeh must be released immediately and unconditionally and this obscene sentence quashed without delay,” Luther said. 

 “Governments with influence over Iran should use their power to push for Nasrin Sotoudeh’s release. The international community, notably the European Union, which has an ongoing dialogue with Iran, must take a strong public stand against this disgraceful conviction and urgently intervene to ensure that she is released immediately and unconditionally.” 

Nasrin Sotoudeh’s sentence made me think of an interview I recently did for Lacuna Magazine with another Nasrin, also a human rights and women’s rights defender. 

Writer, artist and human rights campaigner Nasrin Parvaz was arrested at the age of 23 by the regime’s secret police after having been betrayed by a comrade. She was tortured and sentenced to death, but her death sentence was commuted to 10 years in prison.

She spent eight years in the same Iranian prison where Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is now being held, and has used the experience as inspiration for a novel and a book of memoirs. Speaking in London, Parvaz told me there are echos of Nazanin’s story in prisons across Iran, where rights defenders have been subjected to rape, routine humiliation, torture and execution. 

“The Islamic regime is a master of concealing and deception. When the UN human rights inspectors came to visit Evin prison in 1990, they built a new wall across our corridor to conceal us. We never met the inspectors. While president [Hassan] Rouhani [elected in 2013] publicly promised reforms, behind closed doors, there are still too many prisoners dying in detention.

“Prisons are still full of men and women fighting for civil rights. Questioning how and why the regime operates is still dangerous.”

How terribly true…

You can read her story of activism and time in Iran’s prisons in Lacuna Magazine here.

Imprisoning the victims – Jordan places abused women in “protective custody”

Credit: Equal Rights Trust

In Jordan, a country with a reputation of being progressive, women and girls who go to the police to report abuse or honour crimes, often end up being the ones thrown in jail.  Instead of prosecuting their abusers, the police place them in “protective custody” – a common practice in the country, seemingly to protect women from gender-based violence.

The practice not only fails to protect women, but further exacerbates the harm they experience and allows perpetrators to act with impunity, according to a damning new report by the Equal Rights Trust, which urges civil society and the Jordanian authorities to end the practice.

The report, Shouting Through the Walls, documents instances where women were detained for up to 10 years and only released with the support of a male relative or husband, an extremely dangerous practice in domestic violence cases.  Indeed, the report cites cases of women being killed upon release by male relatives, despite guarantees of their safety. And women who don’t have a husband are kept until they can find one. “The Governor is insisting I need to have a husband [to be released], but where am I supposed to find a one when I am locked up?” one women in protective custody said.

The practice is also used to detain foreign women who have been trafficked or who have left their employer’s home because the employer abused them.

Women in “protective" custody's situation is grim: they are detained without having committed any crime, often following significant violence or threats of violence. They have no prospect of release nor any real ability to influence their release. Not surprisingly, they are more likely to experience psychological problems than women in judicial detention. According to a 2014 Penal Reform International survey undertaken at Jordan’s Juweida prison, 62% of women in “protective custody” suffered form depression and a quarter have self harmed and had suicidal thoughts.

The report also paints a bleak picture of the conditions in jail, including overcrowding, a lack of access to healthcare, poor hygiene and few opportunities for work.

There are very little data about this practice, which exists also in other countries, but figures from the National Centre for Human Rights (2015) showed that nearly half of women prisoners in Jordan are administrative detainees.  Despite its reputation as a progressive state, Jordan ranks low on gender equality and women’s rights amongst world’s countries. 

 

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox "celebrate" 40 years in solitary confinment

Herman Wallace (left) and Albert Woodfox in Angola prison

 A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on two men who have spent 40 years in solitary confinement in Angola prison in Louisiana. Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have spent 23 hours of each day in the last 40 years in a 9ft-by-6ft cell. (Read why they are in prison here).

Yesterday, they "celebrated" their their 40th anniversary of solitary confinement. To mark the day, Amnesty International put pressure on the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, to release the two men from solitary by delivering a petition bearing more than 65,000 signatures  to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. AI calls their prolonged solitary incarceration a form of cruel and inhumane treatment that is banned under both the US constitution and international law.

"I can make about four steps forward before I touch the door," Herman Wallace said as he describes the cell in which he has lived for the past 40 years. "If I turn an about-face, I'm going to bump into something. I'm used to it, and that's one of the bad things about it."

I cannot begin to imagine how one can survive under these circumstances, so was very interested to find out in a Guardian article by Ed Pilkington yesterday about a new documentary that takes us inside that cell. The documentary, Herman's House, based on recorded conversations between Wallace and independent film-maker Angad Bhalla, tells us how it feels to live that way and what it does to you.

The film also describes the relationship between Wallace and a young artist called Jackie Sumell. The American artist was so outraged by his story that she decided to help him imaginatively escape from solitary confinement by having him design his perfect house. In 2003, she asked Herman a very simple question: "What kind of house does a man who has lived in a 6' x 9' box for over 30 years dream of?"

"What kind of house do a man in solitary dream about?" he says in the film. "I don't dream about no house. Being out there in the streets, even if I was homeless, I'd be satisfied."

But he does go on to design for Sumell his perfect house, sending her drawings and descriptions in words from which she builds a recreation of Herman's house as an art installation. 

"In the front of the house," he writes, "I have gardens full of gardenias, carnations and tulips. This is of the utmost importance. I would like my guests to be able to smile and watch the flowers all day long."

This extraordinary collaboration between Wallace and Sumell (called the House That Herman Built) has gained international recognition through its exhibition,  corresponding book and now soon the documentary. "The House That Herman Built"  is a testament to the human imagination, an illustration of kindness, an art project, and an introduction to history that highlights institutionalized racism in the United States," states Sumell's website. "Ultimately, Herman's House is a monument to resilience, courage, creativity and magnanimity."

The film "Herman's House", directed by Angad Bhalla and produced by Lisa Valencia-Svensson, will be shown at the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival on April 27. 

Out of Prison and Trying to go Straight – an ex-inmate records his attempts to put his criminal past behind him

Paul outside Wandsworth prison/photo by Caroline Irby

Can you really change after a life of crime? How easy is it to escape an addiction? And if you are trying to go straight, what help is available? These were the questions that prompted photographer Caroline Irby and I to follow Paul Johnston’s progress after his release from prison, where he had served eight years of a ten-year sentence for aggravated burglary. 

We first met Paul in September 2008 inside London’s Wandsworth prison, then at the prison's gates on his release and continued to track his journey as the weeks, months and finally years passed: in a greasy-spoon in Clapham Junction, at St Pancras, the Tate Modern - in cafes, on buses and on the street - then back in prison, in Hull, where he was in secondary rehab after his re-release, and finally now back in London. 

Now 48, Paul grew up in Fulham, London. His mother was a school dinner lady, his father a truck driver. Many members of his family and friends are involved in crime and drugs. Two of his brothers are currently in prison, one for life. Paul has been addicted to alcohol and drugs since he was 17, and has spent most of his life in prison. He is separated from his wife and has three children: a son, 27, who was in prison with him and now lives in Spain, a daughter, 18, and another son, 16.

Towards the end of his sentence, Paul decided to turn his life around and enter a rehabilitation programme run by Rapt (the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust). "I’ve been in jail all over the country for all these years, dealing and using drugs. At some point, I decided I had enough. I got desperate. I wanted my life to be more than this. It sounds flowery, but I want to be a better person."  In prison, Paul worked with St Giles Trust, a charity training prisoners and gained professional qualifications. He now wants to do a counseling degree, and then open a boxing/counseling centre for at risk youths with a friend, a former professional boxer.

But as with many of the 95,000 inmates released every year, Paul’s journey was not going to be easy.   Our piece (selected extracts from copious notebooks) chronicling his attempts to put his criminal past behind him over the past two years was published in the Guardian (G2) on August 5.  The piece is constructed as a diary in which Paul talks openly about his regrets, his fear of leaving behind the only life he has ever known, his worries about his lack of money and a place to stay, and his anger and frustration at all the administrative hurdles he has to jump over. Looking back at his life, he talks about his childhood, what makes him trip, what gives him hope and strength.

The piece ends on a depressing note: Paul is pretty desperate – he has no job, no money and no idea how to live a normal life. But the article shows how important RAPt and other drug rehabilitation and reinsertion programmes are, and how without sustained help to find a job and housing, ex-offenders have little hope to succeed outside. Considering that keeping an inmate behind bars costs  about £44,000 a year, investing in good, consistent rehabilitation/resettlement programmes would be money well spent.

Read our article here.