Noori-Zad: Security Forces Failed to Disperse Nasrin Sotoudeh and Her Supporters

According to reports, despite the efforts of security forces to prevent the continuation of the protest gathering led by Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer, and her supporters in front of the Bar Association, the protesters have managed to maintain their presence in front of this association. Mohammad Noori-Zad, a writer and filmmaker critical of the Iranian government, provided an account of the situation at this gathering held on Monday, February 1, which has also been reflected on the pages of the "International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran." Over the past several months, Nasrin Sotoudeh has repeatedly protested against the disciplinary court's ruling that imposed a three-year ban on her legal practice, citing issues such as "attempts to completely eliminate the independence of the Bar Association and ignoring the rights of dissenters in choosing their lawyer." Noori-Zad writes that on Monday, Ali Najafi Tavana, the head of the Bar Association, requested security forces to "deal with" the protest gathering of Nasrin Sotoudeh and her companions. According to Noori-Zad, who was present at the gathering, security forces began their actions by "intimidating" one of the young attendees but were met with the shout of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who stated, "The responsibility for this protest is mine, and you should not interfere with my friends." Sotoudeh then loudly expressed her protest by stating, "My friends and I will remain here as long as lawlessness has taken the form of law." Following this, security forces faced resistance from other protesters, including the father of Mostafa Karim-Begui, a victim of the Ashura protests in 2009, and Mohammad Maleki, the first president of Tehran University after the revolution and a political activist. According to Noori-Zad, the security forces then created a "commotion" to disperse the crowd, but "no one left the scene." Nasrin Sotoudeh, a joint winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament in 2012, was released last year after serving half of her six-year prison sentence. She had played a role in sensitive political and human rights cases before her arrest in 2010.