Iran
Worldwide ISHR postcard campaign:
Sign of hope for Nasrin Sotoudeh
Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/New York, April 2, 2020 – A postcard delivers a message, many postcards send a signal: The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) and the postcard app MyPostcard started a global postcard campaign for Nasrin Sotoudeh. The Iranian human rights defender campaigned for women’s rights and against the headscarf compulsion in her home country and was therefore sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes in 2018. From Evin prison, she recently called for the release of all political prisoners in Iran and went on a week-long hunger strike on March 17, 2020. Despite the release of many prisoners due to the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of political prisoners are still detained.
The fate of the Iranian lawyer
Nasrin Sotoudeh couldn´t be intimidated by the Iranian regime. Not through threats, arrests, and ill-treatment. She vehemently called for compliance with Iranian law and international minimum standards. In addition, as a lawyer, she continued to represent people who have been oppressed by the leadership of the Islamic Republic for years – women, human rights defenders and members of minorities. She also spoke out publicly against the headscarf requirement. On June 13, 2018, the Iranian regime arrested the lawyer again without warning. She was sentenced to five years in prison without being able to attend the trial or defend herself. In a new trial, the mother of two was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes for her struggle against the omnipresent headscarf compulsion in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 2012 and is a member of the ISHR Board of Trustees. She is serving her sentence in the notorious Evin prison.
The postcard campaign
ISHR and MyPostcard are now calling on the international community to send encouraging words to Nasrin Sotoudeh to the Evin prison by postcard. Everybody who wants to participate can find the campaign postcard with Nasrin’s photo and the words “Free Nasrin” at www.mypostcard.com/designs/igfm or in the app in the designs section under the keyword “IGFM”. From April 6, 2020, a text suggestion – which can be changed if desired – and the address of the prison are automatically stored. For this campaign MyPostcard provides 1.000 free codes for new and existing customers of the app. The freecode “FREENASRIN” will then be redeemed automatically at the checkout. Postcards can be sent from all over the world and messages can be written in all languages. The IGFM suggests to write the personal words in English if possible so that the human rights activist can understand them. “Mail to political prisoners is often an effective protection against abuse and gives hope to the detainee, so we support the important work of the ISHR and we would like to use the postcard campaign to draw attention to the fate of Nasrin Sotoudeh,” says Oliver Kray, founder and CEO of MyPostcard .
MyPostcard’s social commitment
MyPostcard is an app that can be used to send your own pictures worldwide as a real postcard. From over 25.000 designs, users can select the template that matches the image, text and occasion and personalize it accordingly. MyPostcard handles the printing, franking and worldwide shipping of postcards. The company has the largest selection of design templates and over three million app downloads. To date, over nine million postcards have been sent worldwide via the MyPostcard app. Social commitment is very important for the 30-person team at MyPostcard. In 2017, the start-up, in cooperation with N24 / Axel Springer, launched a campaign for the correspondent of the German newspaper “Die Welt” Deniz Yücel, who was imprisoned in Turkey at the time.
“The ISHR does great work for political prisoners. As MyPostcard´s social commitment is very important, we would like to use the joint postcard campaign for Nasrin Sotoudeh to draw the attention of as many people as possible to the fate of the Iranian lawyer and give her hope”.
Felix Wunderlich, Head of Business Development at MyPostcard
