This year's Nobel Peace Prize is a direct message against the repression of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The prestigious award goes to the journalist and human rights activist in Iran Narges Mohammadi, as announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee yesterday from Oslo. Mohammadi has been in and out of prison unjustly for more than a decade due to her activism. She is currently serving multiple sentences in Evin prison in Tehran.
The committee awarded Mohammadi “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” said its president Berit Reiss-Andersen.
With the award, the Norwegian jury also wanted to “recognize the hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against the theocratic regime's policies of discrimination and oppression against women.” The president of the committee began her speech with this intention, pronouncing the words “zan, zendegi, azadi” (“woman, life, freedom,” in Farsi). This was the cry of the massive protests that broke out in the country after the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the morality police in September 2022.
Mohammadi’s “brave fight,” Reiss-Andersen continued, “has had enormous personal costs. The Iranian regime arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Mohammadi remains in prison.” Among the crimes she is accused of is spreading propaganda against the Iranian government. From prison, Mohammadi conducted several interviews with other inmates about prison conditions, which she included in her book White Torture, the publication of which added more years to her last sentence of ten years and eight months in prison.
The committee went a step further by urging Tehran, which has condemned the award, to release Mohammadi: “If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her so that she can be present to receive this honor (in December), which This is what we hope for,” stated its president. The Iranian government-affiliated news agency Fars disgraced “the West” for awarding the activist “for her actions against Iran's national security.”
Born in Zanjan, 300 kilometers from Tehran, in April 1972, Mohammadi studied physics and engineering, but as a young woman she created a group where social and political aspects were discussed. Her activism came from her family, where several of its members had been in prison. During that time as a student she met her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who was locked up for 14 years, which pushed her even further towards her activism.
“This Nobel Prize will encourage Narges' fight for human rights, but the most important thing is that it is, in fact, a prize for the Women, Life and Freedom movement,” said Rahmani, in an interview broadcast by Reuters at his home in Paris, where he went into exile after being released from prison while his wife stayed to continue her fight for human rights.
Mohammadi, the mother of two twins in their late twenties, worked in several reformist publications in the 1990s, including the only magazine that advocated for women's rights. She was also deputy director of the Center for Human Rights Defenders of Iran, a non-governmental organization directed by the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2003, Shirin Ebadi. Mohammadi was one of three imprisoned Iranian journalists who received the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize in early 2023.
The United Nations highlighted that the Nobel recognition serves to highlight “the courage and determination in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detentions suffered by Iranian women,” and that they are “an inspiration for the world,” in words of the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner, Elizabeth Throssell.
While this year's election serves as a denunciation of the oppression of the Ayatollah regime, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was read as a warning to Vladimir Putin and his allies. On that occasion the award was shared by Alés Bialiatski, a human rights defender who Belarus sentenced this year to ten years in prison; the Russian human rights organization Memorial, banned in his country; and the Center for Civil Liberties of Ukraine.
The jury that chooses the winners is made up of five academic members and former politicians. It is independent but is appointed by the Norwegian parliament. The committee says it has received 351 nominations for this year's award, including 259 for individuals and 92 for organizations.
The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one of the six awards that is awarded and presented outside of Sweden, in Oslo, at the express wish of the founder of the prizes, the Swedish magnate Alfred Nobel, since at the time Norway was part of the neighboring country. "Only by embracing equal rights for all will the world achieve the fraternity among nations that Alfred Nobel sought to promote," Reiss-Andersen said.
