Narges Mohammadi, a women’s rights activist and opponent of the Ayatollah regime, received the Nobel Peace Prize. Mohammadi has been in prison since 2021, when she was captured by Iranian authorities in the middle of an anti-government protest. Tehran strongly criticized the international recognition of Mohammadi and considers it to be “an interventionist policy of the West in Iran.”
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The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, accused the Nobel Committee based in Oslo, Norway, in a statement, of politicizing the issue of human rights. Kanaani stated that “the Committee’s action is a political decision in line with the anti-Iran interventionist policies of some European governments.”
The ministerial spokesperson reaffirmed the condemnation in the Persian country of the now Nobel Peace Prize winner in a statement broadcast by the Iranian state media.
“The Nobel Peace Committee awarded the prize to a woman convicted of repeatedly violating the law and committing criminal acts. We denounce this as biased and a politically motivated measure.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison, totaling approximately 12 years, according to Front Line Defenders, an organization concerned with the defense of rights.
Iran has emerged as one of the main enemies of the United States since the Islamic Revolution was successful in 1979 and a theocratic republic was established. An antagonistic relationship with the West that had a turning point 20 years ago when the then US president George Bush Jr. declared Iran as one of the nations belonging to the ‘Axis of evil’.
Iran’s recent tense history with Western powers has had an impact on the Persian country’s internal protest movements. Tehran describes the anti-government demonstrations as sabotage attempts led by the West and on this occasion the nomination of the activist and opponent of the regime, Narges Mohammadi, reinforced that official rhetoric.
Who is the Nobel Peace Prize winner held captive in Iran?
Narges Mohammadi is the nineteenth woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Mohammadi has fought for the rights of women and protesters from her position as vice president of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, a non-governmental organization headed by Shirin Ebadi, who also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 and lives in exile.
Mohammadi had already been arrested more than a dozen times before being imprisoned in Evin prison. She remains behind bars after attending a 2021 memorial for one of the victims killed in the nationwide protests that erupted over rising gasoline prices.
A Nobel Peace Prize after the historic protests over Amini’s death
“We want to give the award to encourage Narges Mohammadi and the hundreds of thousands who chanted ‘Women, Life and Freedom’ in Iran.”
These were the words of Berit Reiss-Andersen, director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, following the announcement of Narges Mohammadi’s nomination. A direct reference to the slogan of the recent demonstrations in Iran.
“We hope to send a message to women around the world who live in conditions where they are subject to systemic discrimination: be brave and keep going,” Reiss-Andersen added to the British news agency Reuters.
The committee that awarded the prize concluded that its decision honors all those who supported the unprecedented protests in Iran and called for Mohammadi’s release.
Women’s rights have been at the center of recent anti-government protests, which broke out after the death in September 2022 of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, detained by the Iranian moral police for allegedly not wearing her hijab correctly.
Iran remains one of only two countries alongside Afghanistan that require women to wear a veil as a sign of piety.
With Reuters, AP and local media
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