Amnesty calls for release of Iran activist

Human rights activsits Amnesty International has demanded the Iranian government release a prominent human rights lawyer who has been handed a nine-year jail sentence. The group called the setence "a final nail in the coffin for freedom of expression and association in Iran" as the country voted in its parliamentary run-off elections on Friday. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, who is a co-founder of Iran’s Centre for Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), was sentenced in July last year after being convicted of charges including “membership of an association [the CHRD] seeking the soft overthrow of the government” and “spreading propaganda against the system through interviews with foreign media”, said the group in a statement. He is due to report to authorities on Saturday when it is expected that he will begin serving his sentence. “Mohammad Ali Dadkhah’s only crime is to have defended the rights of others. He should not even have been on trial in the first place and his sentence should be quashed immediately,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. Dadkhah has reportedly represented many prominent clients such as prisoner of conscience Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, facing a possible death sentence for alleged “apostasy from Islam” and Ebrahim Yazdi, the 80-year-old former leader of Iran's banned Freedom Movement, who was recently summoned to begin serving an eight-year prison term. While in court planning to represent a client, Mohmmad Ali Dadkhah was informed by a judge on April 28 that an appeals court had upheld both his nine-year sentence and a ten-year ban on legal practice and teaching. Amnesty says he received no prior notification of the appeal court ruling. The CHRD, which was led by Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, was forcibly closed by the Iranian authorities in December 2008. Its members have continued to carry out their human rights work despite reported opposition from Tehran. Several are currently serving prison sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison.