Den 27 mars ordnade Svenska PEN och Amnesty i Sverige en stödmanifestation för männisorättsjuristen Nasrin Sotoudeh, dömd i sin frånvaro till 33 års fängelse och 148 piskrapp. Sammantaget blir nu den totala längden på hennes fängelsestraff 38 år. Om den nya domen fastställs och spöstraffet verkställs innebär den med största sannolikhet en dödsdom för Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Omkring 150 personer samlades på onsdagen vid Norrmalmstorg i Stockholm för att kräva hennes ovillkorliga och omedelbara frigivning. Vid manifestationen talade bland annat Jennifer Clement, ordförande i PEN International. Nedan kan du läsa hennes tal i sin helhet.
Vi vill tacka alla som kom för att visa sitt stöd.
OUR PRISONER
Jennifer Clement
I am honoured as President of PEN International, to stand here for the freedom of Nasrin Sotoudeh and protest the wrongful conviction and extreme punishment - sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes as ordered by the Iranian judiciary. Sotoudeh has fought for the end of the death penalty for children and for women’s rights in Iran. In PEN’s Women’s Manifesto we echo what she says and what women around the globe know:
Violence against women, in all its many forms, both within the walls of a home or in the public sphere, creates dangerous forms of censorship. Across the globe, culture, religion and tradition are repeatedly valued above human rights and are used as arguments to encourage or defend harm against women and girls.
In 2007 Sotoudeh visited Ireland, after an earlier release before this recent incarceration, and talked about how the prison there had been turned into a museum. She said, “When I was in prison, I remembered the prison I visited in Ireland. It helped me to tolerate my captivity. And I thought, ‘Maybe some day Evin Prison will be a museum, and there will be a cell with my name.’ It gave me courage.”
This made me contemplate on how, in PEN, we talk about “our prisoner”. What we mean, of course, is that this is a person we are advocating for and is in the PEN Case List. But this ownership is so profound to me. It is like saying this person is our child, but it is also saying, “This prisoner does not belong to the state, the government, a powerful leader, a jail, a corrupt judge, a prosecutor, a religious cleric, or a jail guard, but belongs to us and this belonging is also a kind of freedom because who we belong to matters.”
Nasrin Sotoudeh is our prisoner.