Court Adjourns Hearing On Jailed Iranian Lawyer's License To Practice

Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced to 11 years in prison in January on charges including "acting against national security."

An Iranian court has indefinitely adjourned a hearing on the revoking of jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh's license to practice law, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

Sotoudeh represented several people arrested during the unrest that followed the controversial June 2009 presidential election.

She was detained and taken to Tehran's Evin prison in September 2010 and sentenced in January to 11 years in prison on charges of "acting against national security" and "assembly and collusion to disrupt security."

She was also barred for 20 years from practicing law and traveling abroad.

Sotoudeh was a member of the Human Rights Defenders Center founded by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Sotoudeh's husband, Reza Khandan, told Radio Farda on May 29 that the prosecutor's office of Evin had asked the disciplinary tribunal of Iran's Bar Association several months ago to suspend Sotoudeh's license to practice law in light of the charges brought against her by the revolutionary court.

Khandan said Sotoudeh attended the inconclusive court hearing on May 29. No reason for the court's adjournment was given.

In a letter to her husband that was recently published on opposition websites, Sotoudeh criticized the "unjust" sentences given to her clients.

"As long as the revolutionary court continues to issue shocking sentences, I will object to them...with or without an attorney's license," she wrote.

Khandan said Sotoudeh's protest against the violation of her clients' rights will remain valid even if her license is revoked.

Asked if Sotoudeh's sentence is final, Khandan said as far as he knows her case has not yet been examined by an appeals court.

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