Public Letter Champions Iranian Human Rights Lawyer’s Nomination for Honorary Doctorate
Dear Principal Woolf and the Queen’s Senate Committee on Honorary Degrees,
We, the undersigned students, Professors, and Queen’s honorary doctorate recipients strongly believe that Queen’s University should bestow Iranian human rights lawyer and political prisoner, Nasrin Sotoudeh, with an honorary doctorate at next year’s Convocation. Ms. Sotoudeh is more than deserving of this honour, for her heroism and determination embodies the struggle for human rights in Iran and the values of the Queen’s community: equality, accountability, protection of the vulnerable, responsible leadership, justice and the rule of law.
Indeed, Ms. Sotoudeh’s courage and commitment to justice in the face of persistent and pervasive injustice has touched the lives of all Iranian people, especially the women, children, journalists, and religious minorities she has dedicated her life to defending.
Ms. Sotoudeh began her career as one of Iran’s first female reformist journalists, writing extensively on the imperative to protect the rights of the vulnerable. As a lawyer, she continued fighting for the rights of marginalized Iranian groups, working closely with Shirin Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), the Society for the Rights of Children, and a variety of women’s rights organizations. Ms. Sotoudeh has acted as a defence attorney to countless Iranians, including members of the One Million Signatures for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws campaign.
Ms. Sotoudeh was one of the last lawyers courageous enough to defend the dissidents and activists arrested in 2009, following the Iranian election. Her bravery in defending the dissidents of the Iranian regime led to her first imprisonment in the notorious Evin Prison in 2010. While imprisoned, Ms. Sotoudeh did not relent — her spirit persisted. She repeatedly went on hunger strike protesting the injustices her, her family, and the Iranian people faced. For the better part of two months, Ms. Sotoudeh refused all food and drank only water mixed with salt and sugar.
It is this unyielding spirit that earned her the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, the Geneva Institute for Democracy and Development’s Giuseppe Motta medal, and the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Each of these awards were awarded in absentia and helped secure her early release from prison in 2013.
Following her release, Ms. Sotoudeh marched on. This summer, even though she realized that it would endanger her and her family’s safety, she defended the ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ who were arrested for publically removing their headscarves in defiance of the compulsory hijab dress code, and organized a sit-in to protest recent restrictions on defendants’ ability to hire independent lawyers.
In the words of Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is herself one of Ms. Sotoudeh’s former clients, “Nasrin is fearless in taking on the cases that other lawyers would carefully avoid.” Her fearlessness, fueled by the duty she feels to protect and promote a just rule of law, has landed her once again in Evin Prison, where she has been since June 2018. In a letter written from her cell, Ms. Sotoudeh courageously affirms: “I realize they had arrested me for my work on human rights, the defense of women’s rights activists, and the fight against the death penalty. Still, I will not be silenced.”
If Ms. Sotoudeh will not be silenced in the face of persecution and prosecution, neither shall we.
Honouring Ms. Sotoudeh with an honorary doctorate is not only just and merited in and of itself, but would also be the most effective means of demonstrating our support for her and the Iranian people. And, like the honorary doctorate York University bestowed onto Nasrin in 2013, it can help secure her early release from prison.
So, let’s help Nasrin Sotoudeh and the Iranian people in building a more just rule of law in Iran by awarding Ms. Sotoudeh an honorary doctorate at next year’s Convocation.
Sincerely,
