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Jailed Iranian Lawyer Declines Injection as Health Worsens on Hunger Strike
Day 21, Husband Says

Michael Lipin

   WASHINGTON - A jailed Iranian lawyer and human rights defender has
   suffered a significant decline in her health on the 21st day of a
   hunger strike to protest Iran's treatment of political prisoners,
   according to her husband.

   Speaking to VOA Persian by phone from Tehran, Reza Khandan said he
   learned of his wife'sworsening health in a phone call that authorities
   allowed her to make from the city's Evin prison on Monday.

   Nasrin Sotoudeh, whohasbeen detained at Evin since June 2018, began her
   second hunger strike of this year on August 11. In a letter'¯written
   bySotoudeh and sent to VOA on the same day, she said shewas demanding
   the release of political prisoners such as herself from overcrowded and
   unsanitary Iranian jails infested with the coronavirus.

   "Unfortunately, she was not in a good condition and we are more
   concerned about her health now,"Khandan said, referring to himself and
   the couple's two children."She said a doctor told her that she needed a
   serum injection due to low blood pressure, but she was not given a
   blood pressure reading and she refused to get the injection."

   Khandan said Evin authorities were limiting Sotoudeh's ability to make
   phone calls from the women's prison ward, allowing her to do so only
   once every two or three days rather than daily.

   In aMondayFacebook post,Khandan said Iran's judiciary has
   an"extraordinary enmity"toward prisoners in the Evin women's ward,
   limiting their phone calls to 10 minutes in duration.

   "Foreightmonths,authoritieshavesuspendedprisoners'face-to-facemeetings
   with visiting family members,especially children,"he wrote."But they
   have not addeda singleminute to thephonecalldurationforthe
   mothersamongEvin'sfemale inmates."

   Khandan told VOA that he has been trying to followup with Tehran
   judicial officials on Sotoudeh's demands but they have refused to speak
   with him.

   "Every time we go tothejudiciary or prisonoffice, therearesoldiersat
   thefrontentrance. They don't let usenterand just ask us to write a
   letter,butweneverget a response,"he said.

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