As a blow to Tehran’s theocratic leaders and a boost for anti-government protestors, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to imprisoned Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi, drawing outrage from the Islamic Republic.
The award-giving committee said that the medal acknowledged individuals responsible for the recent, unheard-of protests in Iran and demanded the release of Mohammadi, 51, who has fought for women’s rights and the repeal of the death sentence for three decades.
‘Woman, Life, Freedom’
Talking to Reuters, Norwegian Nobel Committee’s head Berit Reiss-Andersen said, “We hope to send the message to women all around the world that are living in conditions where they are systematically discriminated: ‘Have the courage, keep on going’. We want to give the prize to encourage Narges Mohammadi and the hundreds of thousands of people who have been crying for exactly ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ in Iran.” She was referring to the protest movement’s premier slogan.
Tehran, which has referred to the demonstrations as Western-instigated subversion, accused the Nobel committee of interfering with and politicking the human rights debate.
“The action of the Nobel Peace Committee is political move in line with the interventionist and anti-Iranian policies of some European governments,” Nasser Kanaani, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said. “The Nobel Peace committee has awarded a prize to a person convicted of repeated law violations and criminal acts, and we condemn this as biased and politically motivated,” he added.
“Will continue to fight”
The New York Times cited Mohammadi as declaring that she would never give up fighting for democracy and equality, even if it meant being in prison.
“I will continue to fight against the relentless discrimination, tyranny and gender-based oppression by the oppressive religious government until the liberation of women,” she reportedly mentioned this in a statement that was released after she was awarded the Nobel Prize, according to the newspaper.
According to the civil rights charity Front Line Defenders, Mohammadi is now serving a total of several sentences totalling around 12 years in jail in Tehran’s Evin jail. Propaganda against the state is one of the charges.
She serves as the deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, a non-governmental group run by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and currently a refugee. “I congratulate Narges Mohammadi and all Iranian women for this prize. This prize will shed light on violation of women’s rights in the Islamic Republic … which unfortunately has proven that it cannot be reformed,” Ebadi said.
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to receive the award in its 122-year history and the first since Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia shared it in 2021.
Taghi Rahmani, Mohammadi’s husband, cheered while watching the news on TV at his Parisian home. “This Nobel Prize will embolden Narges’ fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is in fact a prize for the ‘woman, life and freedom’ movement,” he stated to Reuters.
Mohammadi, who has been detained three times at Evin prison since 2012 and has been arrested more than a dozen times throughout her life, has been unable to see her husband or children for 15 years.
Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. were previous winners.
