2023-10-06 23:22:24
The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize was crowned on Friday by Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, currently imprisoned in Iran, a decision strongly denounced by the Islamic Republic, where bareheaded women fight for their rights despite violent repression.
The 51-year-old activist and journalist is being rewarded “for her fight once morest the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all,” said the president of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
Vice-president of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, founded by Shirin Ebadi – also a Nobel Prize winner in 2003 – Narges Mohammadi has been repeatedly condemned and imprisoned over the last 25 years for her commitment once morest the compulsory wearing of veil by women and once morest the death penalty. When his distinction was announced, the UN requested his release.
“We note that the Nobel committee awarded the peace prize to a person convicted of repeated violations of laws and who committed criminal acts,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement. a statement.
He denounced a “political and interventionist act, involving certain European governments”.
Iran experienced a vast protest movement last year triggered by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, arrested in Tehran for non-compliance with the strict Islamic dress code.
A 16-year-old girl, Armita Garawand, is currently in a coma, according to the NGO defending the rights of Iranian Kurds Hengaw, following having been “attacked” by members of the moral police, responsible for enforcing the obligation to wear the veil.
“A slap in the face to the diet”
“The movement accelerated the process of democracy, freedom and equality”, now “irreversible”, Narges Mohammadi wrote to Agence France-Presse last month from his cell.
She and three fellow inmates burned their veils in the courtyard of Evin prison in Tehran to mark the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death on September 16.
Iran ranks 143rd — out of 146 countries — in the World Economic Forum’s ranking on gender equality.
The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising – a slogan with which Ms. Reiss-Andersen began her announcement on Friday, in Farsi then in English – was violently repressed there.
According to the NGO Iran Human Rights, 551 demonstrators — 434 men, 49 women and 68 children — were killed by security forces, and thousands more arrested.
“This price is a slap in the face of Ali Khamenei’s regime [le guide suprême du pays]who declared war on his own people,” said Masih Alinejad, another famous opponent of compulsory wearing of the hijab.
If the protest is now more diffuse, it continues in different forms, posing to the Iranian authorities one of the greatest challenges since the 1979 revolution.
The Nobel “also rewards the hundreds of thousands of people who, over the past year, demonstrated once morest the theocratic regime’s policies regarding discrimination and oppression once morest women,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen.
“A historic moment”
The winner’s family welcomed “a historic moment for the fight for freedom in Iran”, and the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, “a tribute to all these women who fight for their rights”.
“I am very, very proud of her, very happy,” said her son, Ali, 17, who has not been able to see his mother for eight years, adding that the award was “a reward for the Iranian people », during a press conference in Paris.
I am very, very proud of her, very happy
A “very strong choice for a freedom fighter,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, while Washington praised the “courage” of the winner.
Tehran had not reacted officially at the end of the day. The local Tasnim agency reported the information, describing Narges Mohammedi as a person detained for his “anti-Iranian” and subversive actions.
According to the Nobel committee, Narges Mohammadi, the 19th woman to win the prize, was arrested 13 times and sentenced five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.
Incarcerated once more in 2021, she has not seen her children – who live in France with her husband – for eight years.
The Nobel Peace Prize – a diploma and a gold medal accompanied by 11 million crowns (nearly 1.4 million Canadian dollars) – will be awarded on December 10 in the Norwegian capital. This is the fifth time it has been attributed to imprisoned activists.
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