- Women’s rights activist serves 12 years in prison
- The price is likely to anger the Iranian government
- Norwegian Nobel Committee praises Iranian protesters
- Iranian News Agency notes “Price from Westerners”
OSLO, Oct 6 (Portal) – Iran’s jailed women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. This is a rebuke to Tehran’s theocratic leaders and an incentive to anti-government protesters.
The awards committee said the award honored those who spearheaded Iran’s recent unprecedented demonstrations and called for the release of Mohammadi, 51, who has campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty for three decades.
“We hope to send the message to women around the world who live in conditions where they are systematically discriminated against: ‘Have the courage, keep going,'” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Portal.
“We want to give the prize to encourage Narges Mohammadi and the hundreds of thousands of people who are crying out for ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ in Iran,” she added, referring to the protest movement’s main slogan.
There was no immediate official response from Tehran, which described the protests as Western-led subversion.
But the semi-official Fars news agency said Mohammadi had “received her prize from Westerners” after she made headlines “for her actions against national security.”
According to human rights organization Front Line Defenders, Mohammadi is serving several sentences totaling about 12 years in Tehran’s Evin Prison, one of the many periods she has been held behind bars.
The charges include spreading propaganda against the state.
She is deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a non-governmental organization led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
“I congratulate Narges Mohammadi and all Iranian women on this award,” Ebadi told Portal. “This award will shed light on the violation of women’s rights in the Islamic Republic… which has unfortunately proven impossible to reform.”
“EMBOLDEN NARGES’ FIGHT”
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the prize in 2021 along with Russia’s Dmitry Muratov.
Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani applauded as he watched the announcement on television at his home in Paris. “This Nobel Prize will encourage Narges’ fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is actually a prize for the ‘Women, Life and Freedom’ movement,” he told Portal.
[1/5]Iranian human rights activist and Vice President of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), Narges Mohammadi, poses in this undated handout image. Mohammadi family archive photos/Handout via Portal/File Photo Purchase license rights
Mohammadi has been arrested more than a dozen times in her life and has been held in Evin Prison three times since 2012. She hasn’t been able to see her husband for 15 years or her children for seven years.
Her prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1 million, will be awarded in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who established the awards in his 1895 will.
Past honorees range from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela.
Mohammadi was quoted by The New York Times as saying she would never stop striving for democracy and equality, even if it meant staying in prison.
“I will continue to fight against the repressive religious government’s relentless discrimination, tyranny and gender-based oppression until women are liberated,” the newspaper quoted her as saying in a statement.
Her award came after rights groups reported that an Iranian teenager was hospitalized in a coma because she was not wearing a hijab after a confrontation in the Tehran subway.
Iranian authorities deny the reports.
GLOBAL TRIBUTE
Mohammadi’s victory also came just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of moral police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code for women.
That sparked nationwide protests, the biggest challenge to the Iranian government in years, and led to a deadly crackdown that left several hundred dead.
The UN human rights office said the Nobel Prize ceremony highlighted the bravery of Iranian women and recognized them from key international organizations. “We have seen their courage and determination in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detention,” said spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell.
“They were bullied for what they wore or didn’t wear. “Increasingly strict legal, social and economic measures are being imposed against them… they are an inspiration to the world.”
Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank, said the prize could help ease pressure on Iranian dissidents but was unlikely to lead to their release.
Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Nerijus Adomaitis, Terje Solsvik and Tom Little in Oslo, Ilze Filks in Stockholm, Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Anthony Paone in Paris, Charlotte Van Campenhout in Brussels, John Davison, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Cecile Mantovani in Geneva; writing by Gwladys Fouche and Andrew Cawthorne; Edited by William Maclean
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