Iranian authorities have intercepted the lawyer for the family of the ill-fated young woman Mahsa Amini and seized the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament, which he was transporting to Iran, a non-governmental human rights organization announced on Saturday.
According to the Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw, cited by the EFE agency, lawyer Saleh Nikbajt returned from France on Friday with the award when he was detained by security forces at Tehran’s Khomeini Airport, who seized his passport and the cell. telephone.
Since Amini’s family is not allowed to leave the country, it was Nikbajt who represented the family at the ceremony in Strasbourg on December 12, during which the award was presented to the young woman who died in the custody of the Iranian morality police and to the “Women’s Movement” , life and liberty”.
The Kurdish lawyer has represented numerous political prisoners and death row inmates and was sentenced last October to a year in prison for allegedly carrying out “propaganda activities against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Hengaw, who is based in Norway.
In addition to Nikbajt, the sister of Hadis Najafi, a 20-year-old woman killed by security forces during a protest, and Mersedeh Shahinkar, who lost an eye during a demonstration, received the award in Strasbourg.
Amini died last year after being arrested by so-called morality police for improperly wearing the mandatory veil, sparking a widespread protest movement for women’s rights in Iran, especially in Kurdish-majority regions.
The demonstrations only subsided after a repression that caused approximately 500 deaths, the arrest of at least 22 thousand people and the execution of seven demonstrators.
The Sakharov Prize is awarded for an outstanding contribution to the protection of freedom of conscience and is the European Union’s highest honor for work in the field of human rights.
Source: DN
