Imagine still living in a world where defending human
lives puts your life at risk. We are still living in that world.
Today I’m going to tell you the story of Nasrin
Sotoudeh.
Nasrin Sotoudeh in an Iranian human rights lawyer who
was prisoned who was prisoned for harming state security and spreading
propaganda but she wasn’t responsible.
All Nasrin was responsible of was defending women’s
right to choose whether or not wearing the headscarf and opposing the law that
allows to execute individuals that are under age which should be considered as
a crime since Iran signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child that
prohibits it.
Nasrin in 2012 was given a sentence of eleven years
and she was banned from her job.
Recently her husband spoke out about the new sentence
she was given and he affirmed that it consists in 38 more years of prison and
148 lashes that might lead her to her death.
The fact that a lawyer, a woman that peacefully
protests in order to obtain human rights is now is risking her life is
unacceptable.
This is why associations that work for human rights
like Amnesty International launched a petition to demand her immediate release.
You can sign the petition on Amnesty International
official website.
Reading stories like this makes you aware of how
lucky we are living in a country where fighting to obtain human rights doesn’t
cost your life. At least for now.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you fight; it is
not enough. Things like where you were born are enough, instead,
to determine your whole life. Most of the times our lives depend on the choices we
make, on how we decide to deal with our issues but there are times when we
don’t have much power on life. What we can do is watch our lives as spectators
watch their movies.
Times when, as William Shakespeare said, men are
creatures of circumstances exist but I think they only represent 20%.
It would be amazing if circumstances were creatures of
men a little more or if that 20% of circumstances wouldn’t put your whole life
at risk. We should work on that, little by little.
KENDRA, 4sc
Watch and listen: Nasrin wrote to her children from prison, Andrea Corr reads her moving words.
Andrea Corr presenting Iranian Human Rights Defender Nasrin Sotoudeh at Voices from the Front Line
9 December 2012, Vicar Street Theatre
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