Nasrin Sotoudeh is a leading Iranian human rights lawyer who has represented numerous prisoners of conscience — including journalists, activists, children, and minorities — advocated against the compulsory hijab law, and denounced the draconian legal system in Iran. For this work, she has been repeatedly targeted and detained by the Iranian regime for more than a decade. In March 2019, Sotoudeh was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes on politically motivated charges, including “inciting corruption and prostitution” and “disrupting public order.” She was released in 2021 on medical furlough, but her freedom did not last. In 2023, she was re-arrested after attending the funeral of a teenage girl killed during the Mahsa Amini protests. And most recently, she was arrested in early April 2026, during Iran’s war with Israel and the United States, and held at an undisclosed location. She was released on bail in mid-May, once again on medical leave.