Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian women’s rights advocate, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Former Vice President of the Center for Human Rights Defenders (DHRC) The organization was selected by a panel of experts in Norway from a list of just over 350 nominations.
Mohammadi, 51, carried out her work despite facing numerous arrests and spending years behind bars for her activism.
“This award is first and foremost a recognition of the very important work being done by an entire movement Iran “With its undisputed leader, Narges Mohammadi,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which announced the award in Oslo. She added: “The impact of the award is not for the Nobel Committee to decide.” “We hope this will be an encouragement to continue working in whatever form this movement finds appropriate.”
Photos/handout from the Al-Mohammadi family archive via Reuters
Mohammadi’s most recent imprisonment began when she was arrested in 2021 after she attended a memorial service for someone killed in nationwide protests in 2019 sparked by a rise in gasoline prices. She has been detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, whose inmates include people with Western ties and political prisoners.
Rhys Andersen said Mohammadi was imprisoned 13 times and convicted five times. In total, she was sentenced to 31 years in prison. She is the nineteenth woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian after her fellow human rights activist. Shirin Ebadi won the award in 2003.
Mohammadi was behind bars Recent protests In the death of a 22-year-old young man Mahsa Amini In police custody. This has raised one of the most severe challenges ever facing Iran’s theocratic regime. More than 500 people were killed in an intensive security campaign, while more than 22,000 others were arrested.
From behind bars, Mohammadi contributed an opinion piece to the New York Times, writing: “What the government may not understand is that the more of us imprisoned, the stronger we become.”
The DHRC office was in Tehran They raided and the group was banned By Iranian authorities in 2008.
In 2019, Mohammadi and fellow prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian national, announced plans to go on a hunger strike in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, to protest the denial of medical treatment. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released By Iran in 2022 after the UK government settled a decades-old debt to Tehran, but Mohammadi remains inside Evin.
Last year’s award was It was won by human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and RussiaWhat was considered a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart and ally.
The award can be given to individuals or organizations. Among other previous winners Nelson MandelaBarack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi And the United Nations.
Unlike other Nobel Prizes which are selected and announced in Stockholm, its founder Alfred Nobel decreed that the Peace Prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The independent commission is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.
This year, the committee received 351 nominations, 259 from individuals and 92 from institutions. People who can submit nominations include former Nobel Peace Prize winners, committee members, heads of state, members of parliaments, and professors of political science, history, and international law.
The Peace Prize is the fifth of the awards to be announced this year. A day earlier, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Norwegian writer John Fos. Wednesday, The Chemistry Prize went to US scientists Monji Boundy, Louis Bruce, and Alexei Ekimov.
the Physics Prize On Tuesday it went to French-Swedish physicist Anne Lhuillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Kraus. Hungarian-American Katalin Carrico and American Drew Wiseman He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine on monday.
The Nobel Prize season concludes on Monday with the announcement of the winner of the Economics Prize, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.
The awards are presented at awards ceremonies in December in Oslo and Stockholm. They carry a cash prize of 11 million Swedish krona (about $1 million). Winners also receive an 18-karat gold medal and diploma when they receive their Nobel Prizes at award ceremonies in December.
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