Shadi Sadr

Shadi Sadr (@shadisadr), a human rights lawyer and PhD candidate at Leiden University, ran Raahi, a legal center supporting vulnerable women, in the 2000s. She defended women facing death by stoning or affected by Iran’s gender-discriminatory laws until security forces shut the center in 2007. Sadr was arrested in 2007 and 2009 for her activism, but has received international recognitions for her work, including several awards such as the Human Rights Tulip and the Alexander Prize from Santa Clara University’s Law School.

In 2010, she co-founded Justice for Iran (JFI) to combat impunity within the Islamic Republic, aiming to hold officials accountable for human rights violations. She co-authored “Crime and Impunity: Sexual Torture of Women in Islamic Republic Prisons.”

Sadr has also contributed as a jury member to several international tribunals, including the 2015 International People’s Tribunals on Indonesia, the 2017 Tribunal on Myanmar, and the 2018-19 Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting in China. Additionally, she co-organized the 2020-2022 Iran’s Atrocities (Aban) Tribunal.