Imprisoned activist Narges Mohammadi, who has campaigned for women’s rights, democracy and against the death penalty in Iran for years, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
Mohammadi, 51, has done his job despite facing numerous arrests and spending years in prison for his activism.
“This prize is first and foremost a recognition of the very important work of the entire movement in Iran with its undisputed leader, Nargis Mohammadi,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who announced the prize in Oslo.
“The impact of the prize is not for the Nobel committee to decide. We hope it is an encouragement to continue the work in whatever form this movement finds appropriate.”
Mohammadi’s most recent incarceration began when he was arrested in 2021 after he attended a memorial for someone killed in 2019 nationwide protests sparked by gasoline price hikes.
He was held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, whose inmates include those with Western connections and political prisoners.
Iranian human rights activist and vice president of the Human Rights Defenders Center (DHRC) Narges Mohammadi.via REUTERS
Reiss-Andersen said Mohammadi had been imprisoned 13 times and convicted five times. In total, he was sentenced to 31 years in prison.
She is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman, after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the award in 2003.
Mohammadi is behind bars for recent protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. That sparked one of the fiercest challenges ever to Iran’s theocracy. More than 500 people were killed in the security crackdown while more than 22,000 others were arrested.
Mohammadi at his home in Tehran, Iran on September 4, 2023, after being released from prison after he was arrested for “spreading” against the country’s Islamic system. AFP FILE/AFP via Getty Images
From behind bars, Mohammadi contributes opinion pieces to The New York Times.
“What the government may not understand is that the more we are locked up, the stronger we are,” he wrote.
There was no immediate reaction from Iranian state television and other government-controlled media. Several semi-official news agencies acknowledged Mohammadi’s victory in online messages, citing foreign press reports.
Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, speaks during the announcement of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winners at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on Oct. 6. 2023. NTB/AFP via Getty Images
Before his imprisonment, Mohammadi was the vice president of Iran’s banned Center for Human Rights Defenders. He has been close to Ebadi, who founded the center.
In 2018, Mohammadi, an engineer, was awarded the 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prize.
PEN America, which supports free speech and earlier this year presented Mohammadi with the PEN/Barbey Freedom of Writing Award, hailed the victory.
Mohammadi listens to questions during a press conference on the Assessment of the Human Rights Situation in Iran, at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 9, 2008.AP
The selection “is a tribute to her courage and to the countless women and girls who have poured into the streets of Iran and faced one of the most brutal and stubborn regimes in the world, risking their lives to demand their rights,” Chief Officer PEN America executive Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.
The Nobel Prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million). Winners also received an 18-carat gold medal and diploma at the award ceremony in December.
Winners of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize are selected by a panel of experts in Norway from a list of over 350 nominations.
A view of the Alfred Nobel statue outside the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where Nobel Peace Prize winners are announced, in Oslo, Norway, Oct. 6. 2023. REUTERS
Last year’s prize was won by human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, in what was seen as a sharp rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart and allies.
Other previous winners include Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi and the United Nations.
Unlike other Nobel prizes that are chosen and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decided that the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Mohammadi’s most recent incarceration began when he was arrested in 2021 after he attended a memorial for someone killed in 2019 nationwide protests sparked by gasoline price hikes. Reuters
The independent panel is appointed by the Norwegian parliament.
The peace prize is the fifth of this year’s prizes to be announced. The day before, the Nobel committee awarded the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse the prize for literature.
On Wednesday, the chemistry prize was awarded to US scientists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov.
The physics prize was awarded on Tuesday to French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz. Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.
The Nobels season ends next week with the announcement of the winners of the economics prize, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
