Shadi Sadr

Shadi Sadr (Persian: شادی صدر‎‎; born 1974) is an Iranian lawyer, Human Rights activist, essayist, journalist, and a women's and LGBT rights advocate. Shadi Sadr is a Founder and Executive Director of Justice for Iran (JFI). She has published and lectured worldwide. She has also served as a judge in the 1965 International Tribunal.

Background

Sadr majored in law and holds a Master's Degree in international law from Tehran University (1999). Sadr was the Director of Raahi, a legal advice center for women, shut down by the Islamic Republic authorities, as well as Zanan-e Iran, a website dedicated to women's rights activists. While in Iran, she represented several women sentenced to death and as a result of her extensive activities, was imprisoned in Iran on various occasions prior to her departure to Germany and U.K. in 2009.

Activities

Sadr is an expert on women's legal rights in Iran. She was director of Raahi, a now-closed legal advice center for women, and founded the website Women in Iran to showcase women's rights efforts in Iran.

As a practicing lawyer, she has successfully defended several women activists and journalists in court, who had been sentenced to execution.

She is one of the Iranians who have campaigned to eradicate the practice of capital punishment by stoning, particularly of women, in a campaign known as End Stoning Forever. This campaign is one of several launched by Women's Field, a women's rights group of which Sadr is a member.

Following the 2003 Bam earthquake, she helped organize a relief effort to collect food and supplies for women and children in the area of Bam.

Sadr is the defense lawyer of Shiva Nazar Ahari, a human rights defender and member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, who was arrested on 14 June 2009.

Arrest

Shadi Sadr was one of 33 women arrested in March 2007 after gathering outside a Tehran courtroom to protest peacefully against the trial of five women accused of “propaganda against the system”, “acting against national security” and “participating in an illegal demonstration” in connection with a 12 June 2006 demonstration in support of women's rights. Sadr was held for fifteen days before being freed on bail together with Mahbubeh Abbasgholizadeh.

On 17 July 2009, Shadi Sadr was beaten by plainclothes militiamen and taken away as she headed toward Tehran University for the Friday Prayers led by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. She was walking on Keshavarz Boulevard with several other female activists when individuals in civilian dress approached and refused to identify themselves or justify their actions before forcing her into a waiting car. After she had briefly escaped, her companions were restrained as she was beaten and forced back into the car. It then took her to an unknown location. She later called her husband, according to some reports to ask for a cellphone password.

. She was released 11 days later on July 28, 2009.

Awards and honors

• Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism, 2004 from Women's eNews in their annual 21 Leaders for the 21st century awards,

2009 - she received 50 000 euro, as a special prize founded by Lech Wałęsa, legendary leader of Polish "Solidarity" and laureate of Nobel Peace Prize in 1983

She also received a Dutch human rights prize, the Human Rights Defenders Tulip, on November 9, 2009.