STATE DEPARTMENT COMMENTS ON JAILED IRANIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIIVIST'S DECLINING HEALTH

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

2012 Sakharov Prize Winner Nasrin Sotoudeh's Hunger Strike
Press Statement
Victoria Nuland
Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 30, 2012

We are deeply troubled by reports of the rapidly declining health of jailed Iranian human rights defender and 2012 Sakharov Prize winner Nasrin Sotoudeh. Iranian officials have denied Sotoudeh, a leading women’s rights champion, medical care during her more than six-week hunger strike and have kept her in solitary confinement.

We remain concerned for Sotoudeh’s well-being given Iran’s history of withholding treatment from prisoners and allowing them to die from hunger strikes.

We demand the Iranian Government cease its intolerable mistreatment of Sotoudeh and immediately release her and the more than 30 other female political prisoners detained in Evin Prison.