Iranian Nobel laureate agrees to defend dissident despite threats
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said Tuesday she has agreed to defend an Iranian dissident despite threats against her.
Ebadi will serve as defense counsel for Ebrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister who faces trial on accusations of plotting against the ruling clerical establishment.
"It would be treason if I stop working out of fear of prison,'' Ebadi said at a news conference.
Yazdi is an outspoken leader of the freedom movement of Iran and a former Iran's Foreign Minister after 1979 Islamic Revolution.
She demanded a jury trial and said it should be open to the public.
Ebadi, who was given bodyguards after receiving threatening letters last year, said that twice in the last 10 days her garage door had been broken by people entering her residence. She said the intruders left without touching anything. She suggested the forced entries were meant as a warning to her.
"Apparently someone who thinks he is beyond the reach of the law is angry about my activities,'' Ebadi said.
The lawyer was known to have angered Iran's hard-line judiciary in July while leading a team representing the mother of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist murdered in prison
The judiciary acquitted the defendant, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, and later claimed Kazemi might have died because of complications from a hunger strike.
Ebadi protested the court verdict and demanded the summoning of a dozen top officials as witnesses.
Ebadi will serve as defense counsel for Ebrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister who faces trial on accusations of plotting against the ruling clerical establishment.
"It would be treason if I stop working out of fear of prison,'' Ebadi said at a news conference.
Yazdi is an outspoken leader of the freedom movement of Iran and a former Iran's Foreign Minister after 1979 Islamic Revolution.
She demanded a jury trial and said it should be open to the public.
Ebadi, who was given bodyguards after receiving threatening letters last year, said that twice in the last 10 days her garage door had been broken by people entering her residence. She said the intruders left without touching anything. She suggested the forced entries were meant as a warning to her.
"Apparently someone who thinks he is beyond the reach of the law is angry about my activities,'' Ebadi said.
The lawyer was known to have angered Iran's hard-line judiciary in July while leading a team representing the mother of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist murdered in prison
The judiciary acquitted the defendant, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, and later claimed Kazemi might have died because of complications from a hunger strike.
Ebadi protested the court verdict and demanded the summoning of a dozen top officials as witnesses.
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