Nobel laureate seeks release of jailed Iran lawyer

Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi says Tehran should released a fellow human rights lawyer who is being held in solitary confinement on charges of spreading propaganda against the ruling system.

Ebadi says Nasrin Sotoudeh has refused all food and liquids for 15 days to protest the conditions of her detention.

Ms. Ebadi says the lawyer’s life is in danger and her imprisonment on September 4 violates Iranian law.

The Nobel laureate told reporters on Monday that she is appealing to U.N.’s human rights office in Geneva to intervene with Iran’s government over the case.

Ms. Sotoudeh represented several of the more than 100 activists and political figures tried on charges of fomenting unrest after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June 2009.