Iranian Activist Narges Mohammadi Awarded Nobel Peace Prize: Fight against Women’s Oppression and Human Rights Advocacy Recognized

2023-10-06 09:11:56
An undated and unlocated October 2, 2023 photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation of Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi. AFP

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday October 6 in Oslo to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, who has been detained for a year in Tehran.

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The 51-year-old activist and journalist is rewarded “for her fight once morest the oppression of women in Iran and her fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all”declared the president of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen.

“This truly highlights the courage and determination of women in Iran, who are an inspiration to the whole worldsaid the spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Elizabeth Throssell, in Geneva, adding: “We have seen their courage and determination in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detentions. »

The UN immediately requested the release of Narges Mohammadi, and “that of all human rights defenders imprisoned in Iran”.

The journalist was sentenced in May 2016 to sixteen years in prison for her human rights activism, a sentence extended in August. She is vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, led by Nobel Peace Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

Protest movement

Narges Mohammadi is rewarded while Iran was crossed last year by a vast protest movement triggered by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, following her arrest in Tehran for non-compliance with the strict code Islamic clothing.

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Narges Mohammadi and three fellow inmates burned their veils in the courtyard of Tehran’s Evin Prison to mark the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death on September 16. Iran ranks 143rd – out of 146 countries – in the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranking on gender equality.

The “woman, life, freedom” uprising – a slogan with which the president of the Norwegian Nobel committee began her announcement on Friday – was violently repressed: 551 demonstrators, including 68 children and 49 women, were killed by the forces of security, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), and thousands of others arrested.

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. Scenes still unimaginable a year ago, women are now coming out revealed in the public places, despite the risks involved. In September, the predominantly conservative Iranian Parliament toughened sanctions targeting women who refuse the veil.

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“Inmate of opinion”

” The price [Nobel] This year’s peace campaign also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people who, over the past year, have demonstrated once morest theocratic regimes’ policies of discrimination and oppression once morest women.and this is Mrs. Reiss-Andersen.

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Arrested once more in 2021, Narges Mohammadi has not seen her children – who live in France with her husband – for eight years. Considered as a “prisoner of opinion” by Amnesty International, she said in her correspondence with Agence France-Presse that she did not “almost no prospect of freedom”.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize represents “a historic and important moment for the struggle for freedom in Iran”his family reacted in a written message on Friday. “We dedicate this award to all Iranians and in particular to Iranian women and girls who have inspired the whole world with their courage and their fight for freedom and equality”she added.

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