has been ordered to return to prison from convalescence this week. Last year Sotoudeh was sentenced to 38 years in jail, and 148 lashes, on charges related to threatening national security and “encouraging corruption and prostitution.”
The charges arise from Sotoudeh’s work defending Iranian women arrested for removing their headscarves in public and distributing pins and flowers in women’s rights demonstrations.
This is all hostage diplomacy of various kinds, and in varying degrees. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor abducted by Beijing, and Ahmadreza Djalali, Kylie Moore-Gilbert and Nasrin Sotoudeh in Iran. In the case of Ahmadreza Djalali, the regime simply appears determined to make an example of him: if you refuse to engage in espionage abroad in service of Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, we will kill you.
According to the Guardian on Wednesday, Djalali has been granted a temporary reprieve. This may be linked to a possible prisoner exchange:
There have been reports that the threatened execution could yet be linked to the trial in Belgium of an Iranian diplomat. Assadollah Assadi, who was serving at the embassy in Vienna, is accused of providing explosives to two individuals to bomb a rally of the opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran near Paris on 30 June 2018. Iran may be seeking to organise a prisoner swap, as it has on previous occasions. Belgian prosecutors are seeking a 20-year prison sentence.
Sophie Wilmès, Belgium’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, spoke with Zarif to “discuss consular issues” on Wednesday, Iranian news agencies reported. Iran is claiming diplomatic immunity for Assadi and he has refused to appear in court.
Cynical and amoral to the core.
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