Jailed Iranian Activist Narges Mohammadi Wins Nobel Peace Prize 2023
Friday, the imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless advocacy for women’s rights, democracy, and against the death penalty.
Mohammadi, 51, has maintained her activism despite multiple arrests by Iranian authorities and years spent in prison. The death of a 22-year-old woman in police custody prompted nationwide women-led protests last year, and she has remained a prominent figure in these demonstrations. These protests developed into one of the fiercest challenges to Iran’s theocratic government ever.
Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, began Friday’s announcement with the slogan of the Iranian protests, “Woman, Life, Freedom” in Farsi.
Reiss-Andersen stated, “This prize is first and foremost a recognition of the extremely important work of an entire movement in Iran with its undisputed leader, Narges Mohammadi.” She also urged Iran to liberate Mohammadi prior to the December 10 award ceremony.
Iran has been administered by a Shiite theocracy commanded by the country’s supreme leader for the majority of Mohammadi’s life. Even though women hold employment, academic positions, and government positions, their lives are strictly regulated. Women are required by law to conceal their hair with a headscarf, or hijab. Iran and its neighbor Afghanistan continue to be the only countries to require this.
In a statement issued following the announcement of the Nobel Prize, Mohammadi stated that she will “never stop striving for the realization of democracy, freedom, and equality.”
“Surely, the Nobel Peace Prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful, and enthusiastic on this path, and it will quicken my pace,” she said in the statement, which was prepared in case she was named the Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Mohammadi, a trained engineer, has been incarcerated thirteen times and convicted five times. She has been sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison. Her most recent incarceration began in 2021, when she was arrested for attending a memorial for a person slain in nationwide demonstrations prompted by a rise in gasoline prices.
She has been detained at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, whose inmates include political prisoners and those with connections to the West.
Amnesty International demanded the immediate release of Mohammadi.
“Her recognition today by the Nobel Peace Committee sends a clear message to the Iranian authorities that their crackdown on peaceful critics and human rights defenders will not go unchallenged,” said Amnesty Secretary-General Agnès Callamard.
Hamidreza Mohammadi, Mohammadi’s brother, told The Associated Press from Norway that he has not been able to communicate with his sister but that he knows the prize “means a lot to her.”
“The prize signifies that the world has recognized this movement,” he said, but it will have no effect on the situation in Iran. “The regime will intensify its assault on the opposition… They will simply destroy individuals.”
Taghi Rahmani, Mohammadi’s husband, who lives in exile in Paris with their two children, 16-year-old twins, stated that his wife “has a sentence she always repeats: ‘Every single award will make me more intrepid, more resilient, and more courageous for achieving human rights, freedom, civil equality, and democracy.'”
He stated that Rahmani has not been able to see his wife for eleven years and that their children have not seen their mother for seven.
Their son, Ali Rahmani, stated that the Nobel Prize was not for his mother alone: “It is for the struggle.
“This award is for the entire population, for the entire struggle since the Islamic government came to power,” the young man explained.
Mohammadi prepared her statement in advance of the Nobel announcement because women political prisoners in Evin are not permitted to use the phone on Thursdays and Fridays, according to exiled Iranian photographer Reihane Taravati, a family friend who spent 14 days in solitary confinement in the prison before fleeing to France this year.
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman, after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won in 2003.
Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres referred to Friday’s selection as “a tribute to all those women who are fighting for their rights at the risk of their freedom, their health, and even their lives.”
It is the fifth occasion in the 122-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize that it has been awarded to a prisoner or person under house arrest. Ales Bialiatski, the leading human rights advocate in Belarus, was among the recipients last year. He remains incarcerated.
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