A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested and severely beaten, her husband said on Monday — one of several activists taken into custody at the funeral in Tehran of a girl who was fatally injured after a reported confrontation with the enforcers of Iran’s strict dress code for women.
The activists were arrested on Sunday at the funeral of Armita Geravand, a 16-year-old who died last week following what many believe was an encounter over not covering her hair on Tehran’s subway, in defiance of the law imposed by the Shiite Islamic government.
Ms. Sotoudeh, 60, is renowned for representing women who have not worn a hijab, the traditional head scarf, while in public, and for refusing to wear one herself. She has been imprisoned several times, and most recently had been convicted at a secret trial in 2019 of security-related crimes, but was released in 2021 because she suffers from heart disease and other ailments.
Her husband, Reza Khandan, said in an interview she had called him in the middle of the night to tell him what had happened, including that her glasses were broken in custody.
“I think the broken glasses say enough. Nasrin also confirmed the beating and mentioned that it was bad,” he said. When she was taken for a court appearance Monday morning, he brought an intact pair of her glasses, he added, but the guards refused to give them to her.
Then she was transferred to Qarchak, a notorious women’s prison outside Tehran.
The Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, accused Ms. Sotoudeh of “violating hijab rules” and “acting against the psychological security of society,” an offense that according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran does not exist in Iran’s penal code.
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