Members of Italy's upper house of parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday deplored the 38-year prison term and 148 lashes allegedly handed to award-winning human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh by a Revolutionary Court in Iran, calling the sentence "unacceptable".
"This sentence left us dismayed. The Iranian activist's only crime was to have peacefully fought against women being made to wear the headscarf, the death penalty and for championing human rights," Senators from the ruling grassroots 5-Star Movement stated.
The family of Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer known for representing women who have protested having to wear the Islamic headscarf, says she received the sentence after being charged with several national security-related offences, all of which she denies.
"Iran has showed by this sentence that it has no respect for human rights - even though it has been a member of the United Nations since 1945," the statement from the 5-Star senators continued.
"It is an unacceptable violation of human rights and we appeal to the international community to work for Nasrin's immediate release," the statement added.
International rights groups strongly criticised the sentence against Sotoudeh, who is also a former political prisoner. She was jailed between 2010 and 2013 on charges of spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security - charges she denied.
While she was in prison the European Parliament gave Sotoudeh the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought for her work representing opposition activists.
