Iranian Lawyers Denied Access to Trial

Lawyers protest lack of access to hearing

Ban Mina Jafari, Lawyer Abdolssamad Khoramshahi, Lawyer Nassrin Sutodeh, Lawyer Muhammad Mustafai, Lawyer (CPJ/IFEX) - New York, August 14, 2009 - In a letter addressed to the head of the Iranian judiciary, four defense lawyers protested that they were not allowed to attend the latest hearing, on August 8, in a mass trial in which more than 100 defendants, including journalists, stand accused of anti-state activities.

On Tuesday, Mina Jafari, Abdolssamad Khoramshahi, Nassrin Sutodeh, and Muhammad Mustafai sent a letter to the chief of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, protesting that they had been denied access into the mass hearing where their clients, some of whom are journalists, are being tried, Radio Zamaneh and the Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. In their letter, the four lawyers said they were denied entry because their clients were already being represented by a public defender. They also voiced disapproval that one of the lawyers was threatened with arrest after trying to gain entrance to the proceedings.

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