• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Iranian Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Posted on: Friday, 10 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, one of the Islamic country's first female judges, won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work fighting for democracy and the rights of women and children.

Ebadi, 56, the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the prize, has worked actively to promote peaceful, democratic solutions in the struggle for human rights, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. It added that she is well-known and admired by Iranians for her defense in court of victims of attacks by hard-liners on freedom of speech and political freedom.

"As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran, far beyond its borders," the awards committee said in its citation.

It said she has stood up as a "sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threat to her own safety."

Ebadi, who is often sharply criticized by hard-liners and conservative clerics, was arrested on July 2000 and given suspended sentences. Ebadi was banned from working as lawyer for five years. It was unclear whether the ban was still in effect.

"I'm a Muslim, so you can be a Muslim and support democracy," Ebadi told Norwegian television when reached in Paris after winning the prize. "It's very good for human rights in Iran, especially for children's rights in Iran. I hope I can be useful."

This year's prize is worth $1.3 million.

Ebadi, who also is known for her writings, was one of Iran's first female judges, serving as president of the city court of Tehran from 1975-1979. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 she has been an activist for democracy and the rights of refugees, women and children.

As an attorney, she represented families of writers and intellectuals killed in 1999 and 2000, and worked to expose conspirators behind an attack by pro-clergy assailants on students at Tehran University in 1999.

She is the third Muslim to win the prize. Yasser Arafat won the prize in 1994, sharing it with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shared the prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for jointly negotiating peace between the two countries.

Committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said Ebadi's work in human rights made it an easy decision for the committee.

"This is a question of fundamental rights about women, about fundamental rights of children and mothers," he said. "I hope the award of the peace to Ebadi can help strengthen and lend support to the cause of human rights in Iran."

The committee also lauded Ebadi for arguing for a new interpretation of Islamic law that is in harmony with vital human rights such as democracy, equality before the law.

The medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace prizes were first awarded in 1901.

The secretive five-member awards committee, which is appointed by but does not answer to Norway's parliament, makes its choices in strict secrecy. It also keeps the names of candidates, a record 165 this year, secret for 50 years, although those who make nominations often reveal them.

Speculation this year had centered on Pope John Paul II and former Czech president Vaclav Havel.

In Poland, Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, the 1983 Peace Prize winner, expressed disappointment that John Paul didn't receive the award.

"I bear nothing against this lady, but if anyone among the living deserves it then it is the holy father," Walesa told TVN24.

The announcements of this year's Nobel awards started last week with the literature prize going to J.M. Coetzee of South Africa.

On Monday, American Paul C. Lauterbur, and Briton Sir Peter Mansfield were selected for the 2003 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discoveries leading to a technique that reveals images of the body's inner organs.

The physics prize on Tuesday went to Alexei A. Abrikosov, Anthony J. Leggett, and Vitaly L. Ginzburg, for their work concerning two phenomena called superconductivity and superfluidity.

On Wednesday, Americans Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.

American Robert F. Engle and Briton Clive W.J. Granger shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing statistical tools that have improved the forecasting of economic growth, interest rates and stock prices.

The prizes are presented to the winners on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896 in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. The Peace Prize is presented in Oslo.

---

On the Net:

Nobel site: http://www.nobel.se

More News in this Category