The daughter of Abdolfattah Soltani, a prominent human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, says hardline Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi is blocking the release of her father although he is legally eligible for early release because of illness. “Six years have passed since my father Abdolfattah Soltani’s incarceration,” Maedeh Soltani has written in a letter published on reformist Kalame website. “Obviously, the least a prisoner can ask for is justice, but unfortunately my father’s case was closed before it was even read.”
Comment: According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, 64-year-old Abdolfattah Soltani, who has represented many dissidents and political prisoners in Iran, has been serving a 13-year jail term since 2011 for “being awarded the [2009] Nuremberg International Human Rights Award,” “giving interviews to the media about his clients’ cases,” and “co-founding the Defenders of Human Rights Center” in Iran with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Soltani’s case is another example of acts of human rights abuses by Iran’s repressive intelligence and judicial authorities. It is also a reminder that President Hassan Rouhani has failed to fulfill his 2013 campaign pledge of freeing political prisoners in the country.
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