Time:

The lawyer who saved my life was just sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes in Iran.

I first met Nasrin Sotoudeh -- an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, and our country’s foremost campaigner for women’s rights and against child executions -- when I was being harassed and violently intimidated by Iran’s intelligence services. My crime? I had removed my headscarf in public and put the video online, in protest of Iran’s forced hijab law and the stifling control over women’s bodies and choices that it represents.

I finally felt empowered, being part of this White Wednesday movement in Iran, where every Wednesday women would courageously defy the regime in removing their headscarves, or wearing a white shawl in support of those who did, and which quickly grew into a near daily event. I was an ordinary woman, partaking in an extraordinary movement.

For this, I would go on to be arrested a total of three times last year. I was beaten and brutalized in prison, my only breaks from the psychological torture of solitary confinement. It was the most frightening experience of my life -- not just the pain -- but that I felt so alone, suffering in solitude.

But then Nasrin showed up. She told me that my struggle is her struggle -- the struggle of all Iranian women -- that I am not alone, and that she would not relent until I am free. Knowing Nasrin was there for me gave me solace and sustained me through it all. She courageously protested, spoke to the media, and navigated the complex and opaque Iranian legal system on my behalf.

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