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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Isabel Choat

‘I am ready to return whenever they say’: Nasrin Sotoudeh on prison, the hijab, and violence in Iran

Nasrin Sotoudeh and her husband Reza Khandan hold up a protest badge that reads: ‘I oppose the mandatory hijab.’
Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and her husband Reza Khandan hold up a protest badge that reads: ‘I oppose the mandatory hijab.’ Photograph: suplied

Iran’s Qarchak jail has been called many things: a torture chamber; the worst women’s prison in the world; unfit for humans. Nasrin Sotoudeh uses just one word to describe the nine months she spent there: “Hell.”

Sotoudeh does not speak of the appalling conditions or stench of sewage, the undrinkable water or lack of food, the disease or cruelty of solitary confinement. She simply says: “I am ready to return whenever they say.”

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