Iran committee to probe rights lawyer's situation

(TEHRAN) - An Iranian parliamentary committee will probe the situation of jailed rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been held in solitary confinement and is reportedly on a hunger strike, Iranian media reported Tuesday quoting a lawmaker.

"If what is published in weblogs and websites is really true, the national security committee will call the justice minister and the head of the prisons service" to explain her situation, said Mohammad Hassan Asfari, a member of the committee.

Sotoudeh, 47, who won the 2012 European Parliament's Sakharov rights prize, went on hunger strike on October 17, according to numerous sources, including her husband, to protest her treatment in Tehran's notorious Evin prison and the harassment of her family.

"If Sotoudeh's hunger strike is to protest the non-implementation of the law, then we will intervene. But if it is for a personal request, we will do nothing," Asfari said.

The national security committee is expected to soon visit Evin prison, according to Iranian media.

Known for representing opposition activists jailed after Iran's disputed 2009 presidential elections, as well as women and juveniles facing the death penalty, Sotoudeh was sentenced to 11 years in January 2011 and banned from practising law for 20 years on charges of "conspiring against state security.

She has been held for a lengthy period in solitary confinement and regularly prevented from face-to-face meetings with her family, including her two children, according to Amnesty International.

The United Nations, the European Union and leading international human rights organisations have called on Tehran to release her.

Iran's top human rights official, Mohammad Javad Larijani, said in late November that Sotoudeh was in "good health" and had met with her family.