On Friday, a detained Iranian women’s rights advocate, Narges Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Mohammadi, who is one of Iran’s leading human rights activists, has campaigned for women’s rights and the abolishment of the death penalty.
Hailing Mohammadi as a “freedom fighter,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee began her speech by saying, in Farsi, the words for “woman, life, freedom” – one of the slogans of the peaceful protests against the Iranian government.
Berit Reiss-Andersen said in the citation, “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.”
Mohammadi is currently serving numerous sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years detention, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organization, one of the many periods she has been imprisoned behind bars.
Charges include disseminating propaganda against the state.
She is the deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a non-governmental organization led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first one since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the award in 2021 jointly with Russia’s Dmitry Muratov.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1 million, will be delivered in Oslo on December 10.
