An Iranian lawyer’s plea for colleagues to speak out against her government’s treatment of the legal profession was heard in sombre silence at the Law Society’s headquarters this week. ‘Every small step to support them in their role may help a person escape execution,’ the anonymous lawyer said in a voice call from Iran. ‘Sometimes a minute is important. I urge you to do what you can.’
The Society was hosting an International Bar Association Human Rights Institute event to mark the Day of the Endangered Lawyer. It followed the publication of a report listing incidents over the past year, including assaults, arrests and sentences of imprisonment and flogging.
The event heard that internationally renowned advocate Nasrin Sotoudeh, on temporary release from prison, had been beaten up and arrested while attending the funeral of 16-year-old Armita Garavand, who died from injuries inflicted by the state morality police.
Javaid Rehman, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said that, far from being independent, the judiciary ‘acts as a repressive state organ’ in Iran. Meanwhile the state has created a parallel Iranian bar association, stuffed with former members of the security services with uncertain legal qualifications.
Iran features in the Law Society’s latest ‘intervention tracker’. The online maps shows that the Society took 40 actions relating to 17 jurisdictions last year. Most were initiated by concerns relating to arbitrary arrest or detention. ‘Across the world, lawyers continue to face harassment, surveillance, detention, torture, enforced disappearance and arbitrary arrest and conviction,’ Society president Nick Emmerson said.
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