Afsaneh Noorozi Asks Shirin Ebadi to Be Her Lawyer

Afsaneh Noorozi has requested Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize-winning lawyer, to take on her defense alongside Abdolsamad Khormashahi. Noorozi, who is accused of murdering the commander of the information protection unit of the police force on Kish Island, sent this letter from Bandar Abbas prison on October 22. Noorozi claims that she killed the victim in self-defense as he intended to assault her, but her death sentence was recently confirmed by the Iranian judiciary. In her letter to Ebadi, Noorozi, while acknowledging the efforts of her current lawyer Abdolsamad Khormashahi, emphasized: 'I ask you to take on my case in defense of women's rights and my child's case in defense of children's rights.' Previously, following Ebadi's selection as the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Stefan Hashemi (the son of the late Zahra Kazemi) had also requested her to represent his deceased mother. Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer and journalist, died after being beaten in an Iranian prison after her arrest in late June. In another part of her letter, Noorozi stated: 'Oh God, help me. If you ask the victim's wife what he would have done if he were in my place, you would certainly hear that he would have done the same.' Noorozi is married and has a fifteen-year-old daughter, both of whom have previously sent letters and conducted painful interviews urging Iranian judicial authorities to reconsider this woman's case. Initial expert opinions had deemed Noorozi innocent.