In the News:
Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi

Iran’s Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize for her work fighting oppression of women, Thomson Reuters, CBC, 2023-10-06.

Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned Iranian activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday. ‘The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,’ the committee said in its citation. Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, announced the prize.

Mohammadi, 51, is one of Iran’s leading human rights activists, who has campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty. She is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organization, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars. Charges include spreading propaganda against the state.

Her most recent arrest came in the wake of nationwide protests over the the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old who died after she was detained by the country’s morality police. ‘This year’s peace prize also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,’ said Reiss-Andersen. […]

For nearly all of Mohammadi’s life, Iran has been governed by a Shia theocracy headed by the country’s supreme leader. While women hold jobs, academic positions and even government appointments, their lives can be tightly controlled. Laws require all women to at least wear a headscarf, or hijab, to cover their hair as a sign of piety

Narges Mohammadi fights to free Iranian women from the hijab forcibly imposed by Iran’s Islamist regime. She also campaigns against the death penalty and against solitary confinement.

See also:

• Narges Mohammadi, Wikipedia page.
• Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize 2023, website of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
• Interview with Maryam Namazie on Narges Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize, John Stratford, LBC, 2023-10-06.