JAILED Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh made a call for peace from her cell in Tehran’s Evin prison for International Women’s Day today.

Ms Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer who was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes in 2018 for “national security offences” and “promoting immorality and indecency” after a career representing opposition activists and death row inmates, said “violations of women’s rights are systemic” in Iran.

Among her fellow prisoners — 40 women crowded into a three-room ward — are women who were arrested for handing out flowers and starting conversations about women’s rights on Tehran’s metro system last International Women’s Day.

She called for Iran’s government to “look at the world through the eyes of peace and to trust life ... as a deadly virus sickens my country,” and said she extended her hands to the citizens of the US, which has imposed devastating sanctions on Iran that have hampered its ability to cope with the coronavirus outbreak, asking them to understand that “our governments have been rivals for years, with little regard for us.”