This Tuesday, the European Parliament posthumously awarded the 2023 Sakharov Prize to Jina Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian girl who died in police custody last year in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The award was scheduled to be presented to Amini's parents and brother, something that has not been possible after the Iranian regime confiscated their passports when they were preparing to travel to France – the award ceremony is held in Strasbourg. On her behalf, the family's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, a veteran defender of political prisoners in Iran, who was sentenced to a year in prison last August for spreading, according to the accusation, “propaganda against the State”. Amini died on September 16, 2022, three days after being arrested by the morality police for not wearing the Islamic headscarf correctly. Her death has sparked the largest protests in Iran since 1979.
In recognition of the fight for freedom and human rights that Iranians have waged for months in the streets throughout the country, the European Parliament has also awarded the Sakharov to the feminist movement Women, Life and Freedom, born from the protests. As representatives of the movement, Mersedeh Shahinkar and Afsoon Najafi collected the award, whom the European Parliament recognized for their bravery, strength and activism in favor of women's freedom in Iran.
The Sakharov Prize was presented by the President of Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who highlighted that the laurel is “a tribute to all those defiant and brave women, men, boys and girls who have taken to the streets despite the enormous repression that exercised by the regime, and that to this day they continue to pressure for change to occur.” Metsola has also referred to the actions that the European Union has taken to force this change in Iran, recalling that “the European Parliament has approved many resolutions that condemn the Iranian regime and its attempts to silence its people, as well as officials who “They exercise repression against women.” Finally, she stressed that the Chamber has previously asked Member States to “redouble” sanctions against those responsible for the repression and to “include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations” of the EU. .
After collecting the award, lawyer Saleh Nikbakht read a letter written by Amini's mother addressed to the parliamentary representatives. “I would have liked to be here to represent all the women of my land and to thank the awarding of the Sakharov Prize. Unfortunately, we have been denied this possibility in a clear violation of human rights. Jina is the embodiment of life. Her name will always be the symbol of freedom, of all oppressed women and of all those who have unjustly lost their lives. The regime believed that by taking her life her dreams would disappear, but that was not the case. From her ashes a new spirit has been reborn. They did not know, and they still do not know, that Jina was a free spirit who represents values that have no borders: justice, freedom, peace, coexistence, equality. “I am convinced that my daughter's name will be remembered as the name of freedom forever,” the lawyer read, provoking applause from the European Parliament.
For their part, Mersedeh Shahinkar and Afsoon Najafi have thanked Parliament for the award and have asked Western governments to increase pressure on the regime so that those who kill people stop doing so. “You can help us. The time has come when politicians must stop reaching out to them, supporting them, knowing as they do everything that has happened and the many deaths caused with their rifles. The Women, Life and Freedom movement must continue,” Afsoon Najafi exclaimed in a previous press conference.
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Repression
Afsoon Najafi's sister, Hadis Najafi, was murdered by the Iranian regime in September 2022 after being shot several times while attending a demonstration in the city of Karaj protesting the mandatory hijab. Afsoon Najafi notoriously denounced the death of her sister on social media and, after suffering harassment and threats from the intelligence services, she left Iran and currently lives in exile.
Mersedeh Shahinkar lost his right eye in October 2022 as a result of the impact of a projectile launched by security forces when he was at a demonstration with his mother in Tehran. The image of Shahinkar on the ground with a bloody eye soon went viral, and her case was added to that of others many young Iranians who in the last year have reported the loss of an eye on social networks by police shooting. But Shahinkar's ordeal did not end there. Weeks after the attack, and after raising her voice against the system's repression repeatedly on her Instagram account, plainclothes agents showed up at her house and confiscated her cell phone and other belongings, after which the now-awarded winner left the country with his daughter. She currently resides in Germany on humanitarian leave.
After Amini's death, Tehran has brutally repressed protests for months, causing more than 500 dead and thousands of injured and detained. Furthermore, the Revolutionary Guard systematically harasses the relatives of the deceased, preventing ceremonies in their memory from being held. On the first anniversary of Amini's death, last September 16, security forces arrested the young woman's father, Amjad Amini, releasing it a few hours later. The intelligence services prohibited the father from approaching her daughter's grave to commemorate the anniversary of her death. Likewise, Amini's tomb, which has become a symbol of resistance in Iran against the atrocious discrimination against women, remains constantly under surveillance.
The regime has managed to silence the protests after months of violence but has not managed to defeat the combative spirit exhibited by Iranian women in the Women, Life and Freedom movement. To counter this expression of civil resistance, the Iranian Parliament this year approved a law that toughens penalties against women who violate the Islamic dress code and the mandatory use of the hijab in public spaces.
Award Finalists
The finalists of the Sakharov 2023 were the lawyer Vilma Núñez Escorcia and the bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, both from Nicaragua, and three women who fight for legal, safe and free abortion: the Polish Justyna Wydrzynska, the Salvadoran Morena Herrera and the American Colleen McNicholas.
First awarded in 1988, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Conscience recognizes individuals, groups and organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to the protection of freedom of conscience. It is the highest award granted by the European Union in the field of human rights and is endowed with 50,000 euros.
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