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Prominent Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Ordered Back to Prison

Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (pictured 2013) was jailed in 2018 after defending a woman arrested for protesting against the requirement for Iranian women to wear the hijab Behrouz MEHRI AFP/File
Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (pictured 2013) was jailed in 2018 after defending a woman arrested for protesting against the requirement for Iranian women to wear the hijab Behrouz MEHRI AFP/File
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Prominent Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Ordered Back to Prison

Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (pictured 2013) was jailed in 2018 after defending a woman arrested for protesting against the requirement for Iranian women to wear the hijab Behrouz MEHRI AFP/File
Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (pictured 2013) was jailed in 2018 after defending a woman arrested for protesting against the requirement for Iranian women to wear the hijab Behrouz MEHRI AFP/File

Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh is back in prison less than a month following her temporary release as her health deteriorated, her husband said Wednesday.

“Today we were told that Nasreen should return to Qarshak Women's Prison,” Reza Khandan wrote on his Twitter page, adding that the judiciary ignored instructions from doctors to extend her release for another week.

The judiciary did not comment on Khandan’s tweet.

Sotoudeh was released from prison last month for the first time in more than two years.

Khandan had said that his wife's condition is extremely worrying after she went on a hunger strike for almost 50 days to seek the release of prisoners during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Sotoudeh, 57, was due to undergo another round of scans and tests to monitor her heart on Sunday, Khandan said, stressing that she was hospitalized for five days in a Tehran hospital last September.

Also, she tested positive for Covid-19 a few days after her temporary release.

Her husband said she contracted the virus during her final days in the Qarchak women’s prison just before coming out on furlough.

The UN had called on Iran to free Sotoudeh, a winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov prize, as well as other political prisoners excluded from a push to empty jails amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Last August, the lawyer announced she was going on hunger strike to demand the release of political prisoners and focus attention on their plight due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But health issues prompted her to stop the hunger strike more than 45 days after she started it.

Sotoudeh was sentenced in 2019 to serve 12 years in jail for defending women arrested for protesting compulsory headscarf laws in Iran.

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A Week after Catastrophic Earthquake, Focus Turns to a Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Myanmar

Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
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A Week after Catastrophic Earthquake, Focus Turns to a Growing Humanitarian Crisis in Myanmar

Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
Rescue workers look on as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)

Search teams pulled more bodies from the ruins of buildings on Friday, a week after a massive earthquake rocked Myanmar killing more than 3,100 people, as the focus turns toward the urgent humanitarian needs in a country that was already devastated by civil war.

United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who is also the emergency relief coordinator, was to arrive Friday in an effort to spur action following the quake. Ahead of his visit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the international community to immediately step up funding for quake victims "to match the scale of this crisis," and he urged unimpeded access to reach those in need.

"The earthquake has supercharged the suffering with the monsoon season just around the corner," he said Thursday.

Myanmar authorities said Thursday that 3,145 people had been killed, with another 4,589 people injured and 221 missing, and did not immediately update the figures on Friday.

Britain, which had already given $13 million to purchase emergency items like food, water and shelter, pledged an additional $6.5 million in funds to match an appeal from Myanmar's Disasters Emergency Committee, according to the UK Embassy in Yangon.

Many international search and rescue teams were also on the scene, and eight medical crews from China, Thailand, Japan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia were operating in Naypyitaw, according to Myanmar's military-run government. Another five teams from India, Russia, Laos and Nepal and Singapore were helping in the Mandalay region, while teams from Russia, Malaysia and the ASEAN bloc of nations were assisting in the Sagaing region.

The Trump administration has pledged $2 million in emergency aid and sent a three-person team to assess how best to respond given drastic cuts to US foreign assistance.

On Friday, five bodies were recovered from the rubble in the capital Naypyitaw and the second-largest city of Mandalay, near the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake March 28, authorities said. The last reported rescue came Wednesday, some 125 hours after the quake struck, when a man was saved from the wreckage of a hotel in Mandalay.

The quake also shook neighboring Thailand, bringing down a high-rise under construction in Bangkok, where recovery work continued Friday. Overall, 22 people have been found dead and 35 injured in Bangkok, primarily from the construction site.

Myanmar´s military seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has turned into a civil war.

The quake worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.

As concerns grew that ongoing fighting could hamper humanitarian aid efforts, the military declared a temporary ceasefire Wednesday, through April 22. The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule.

On Thursday, however, there were renewed airstrikes in Kayah state, also known as Karenni, in eastern Myanmar, according to witnesses.

The military has said that it would still take "necessary" measures against resistance groups, if they use the ceasefire to regroup, train or launch attacks, and the groups have said they reserved the right to defend themselves.