activist

Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh is protesting every day against a court decision banning her from practicing law for three years. On 25 November police interrogated her for seven hours after she demonstrated against acid attacks on women in Isfahan, but this has not deterred her personal protest.

“Your wishes, Mahienour?” were Judge Sherif Hafez’s first words to leftist activist Mahienour al-Massry in the deliberation room before he ruled to suspend her six-month prison sentence.

Firm and confident, Massry replied, “The release of the thousands of detainees from prison.”

Asha Hagi Elmi is a humanitarian activist, internationally recognised for her work helping to build peace and defend the rights of women in Somalia. Witness journeys with Asha to the refugee camps of Mogadishu, swelled to bursting point in 2011 by tens of thousands of Somalis fleeing drought and the threat of famine.

Asha, her sister Amina and other women from the NGO she founded, Saving Somali Women and Children (SSWC), distribute food, clothing, medical and practical aid, lend an ear to the refugees' stories and, most of all, attempt to restore dignity to the lives of the often traumatised and extremely vulnerable women and children they meet in the camps.

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