Association

http://www.fidh.org/article16274

Dear Compatriots and human rights activists,

The 2nd

Branch of the Disciplinary Investigation Panel of the Bar has sentenced me, Nasrin Sotoudeh,

lawyer, to a three-year ban on practicing law. Thus, I shall begin a sit-in outside the Bar Association

on the morning of Tuesday 21October 2014.

Here are the reasons for my sit-in:

1. The Iranian government has been depriving dissidents from the right to life, education and

work for many years.

I object to such deprivation.

2. The lamentable state of the Bar Association has prompted the hardliners within the

government to target the entire Bar. By drafting the ‘Comprehensive Attorneyship Bill’,

which has been prepared without the involvement of independent lawyers, they are

planning to put an end to the Bar Association once and for all.

I object to such measures.

3. Courts of law have deprived dissident defendants from the right to appoint lawyer of their

own choice. There was a time when they advised these defendants not to appoint human

rights lawyers and occasionally mentioned the names of such lawyers.

Now the breach of the rights of defendants has gone too far: an unidentified person appears

from nowhere in court and the judge introduces him to the defendant as the latter’s lawyer.

Meanwhile, prominent lawyers such as Messrs Abdolfattah Soltani, Mohammad Seifzadeh,

lawyers of the Dervishes of Gonabadi Order and others have been sentenced to long-term

prison terms.

I object to such procedures.

4. The sentence imposed by the 2

ban me from practicing law for three years has been issued under pressure from the Ministry

of Intelligence and the Prosecutor’s Office.

I object to this sentence.

I shall not file an appeal with the Disciplinary Court of Judges from my home. Rather, I shall stage

a sit-in outside the Capital Tehran’s Bar Association at 9 am, Tuesday, 21 October 2014 to protest

the mismanagement in the Bar Association and the judges’ partiality, the deprivation of work, the

disregard for the rights of dissenters to appoint lawyers of their choice, and efforts to eliminate the

Branch of the Disciplinary Investigation Panel of the Bar to

nd

independence of the Bar Association.

Hoping for the independence of the Judiciary and the Bar,

Nasrin Sotoudeh
20 October 2014