This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian women’s and human rights activist who is imprisoned in the Islamic republic.
Mohammadi has been arrested by Iranian authorities 13 times, convicted five times and sentenced to 31 years’ imprisonment and 154 lashes.
The Nobel Committee said that Mohammadi’s life embodies the “Woman, Life, Freedom” motto of the protests that erupted in Iran last year in response to the death in custody of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini, whom police arrested for not wearing her headscarf in accordance with Islamist rules.
Hours after the announcement of Mohammadi as the winner of the 2023 peace prize, her Instagram account published a statement from her family in which they congratulated all Iranians, “especially the courageous women and girls of Iran who have captivated the world with their bravery in fighting for freedom and equality.”
"This prestigious recognition serves as an enduring testament to Narges Mohammadi’s tireless civic and peaceful work in bringing change and freedom to Iran,” her family wrote. But the statement added: “Regrettably, Narges is not with us to share this extraordinary moment. We cannot witness her joyous reaction to this remarkable and splendid news due to her unjust imprisonment.”
In a subsequent Instagram post, Mohammadi’s family said it could not share the news with her because Tehran’s Evin prison, where she is detained, does not allow phone calls on Fridays to inmates in the women’s ward for political prisoners. It said family members would try to contact her on Saturday.
Mohammadi began her activism in the 1990s as a young physics student and was first arrested in 2011 for her work with incarcerated activists and their families.
Her subsequent activism, bringing attention to Iran’s death penalty, torture and sexual violence against political prisoners, especially women, resulted in more arrests.
Last year, as a leader among prisoners, she voiced support for the demonstrators who took to the streets of Iran to protest Amini’s death while incarcerated. Prison officials stopped Mohammadi from receiving calls and visitors, but she managed to smuggle out an article for the New York Times that was published on September 16, exactly one year after Amini died.
Mohammadi wrote in the article, “The more of us they lock up, the stronger we become.”
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating Mohammadi on the award and urging Iran to immediately release her and other jailed gender equality advocates.
“Sadly, Mohammadi’s award comes the same week that horrifying reports have emerged about Iran’s so-called morality police assaulting 16-year-old Armita Geravand for not wearing a headscarf,” Biden said.
He added that the U.S. will continue supporting Iranians’ advocacy for their freedoms by leading an ongoing diplomatic initiative at the United Nations to “highlight, condemn, and promote accountability for Iran’s abuses;” by deploying anti-censorship tools to improve internet access for Iranians; and by sanctioning Iranian individuals and entities responsible for “supporting the regime’s oppression of its people.”
Exiled Iranian rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the last Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, told VOA Persian in a Friday interview that Mohammadi’s award will draw the world’s attention to what she called “the bad situation of human rights in Iran, particularly discrimination against women.”
Ebadi, who has been based in London since 2009, is director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center that she and fellow activists founded in Iran in 2001. Mohammadi has worked with Ebadi as the group’s spokesperson.
“Awarding a human rights prize to anyone will give them access to more platforms so they can speak out in a louder voice and more clearly with the world,” Ebadi said. “As for the personal impact, I hope that this prize leads to the release of Mohammadi and all political prisoners.”
In another interview with VOA Persian, Amnesty International’s Iran researcher Raha Bahreini said Mohammadi has spoken out against Iran’s use of the death penalty and solitary confinement and the prevalence of sexual violence against detained women in prisons.
“Awarding this prize to Mohammadi is a recognition of her courageous, ongoing struggles in all these fields over the years, which have attracted international attention more than ever since the start of Iran’s ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement last year,” Bahreini said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize win is "a tribute to all those women who are fighting for their rights at the risk of their freedom, their health and even their lives."
The award, he said, is "an important reminder that the rights of women and girls are facing a strong pushback, including through the persecution of women human rights defenders, in Iran and elsewhere.”
Alfred Nobel, a 19th-century Swedish chemist best known for inventing dynamite, provided money for the Nobel prizes in his will. He said there should be five prizes — physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. These prizes were to be given to “those who during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
