Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize.

Prominent Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, centre, sits next to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, left in Tehran [File: Vahid Salemi/AP]

By Edna Mohamed and Mersiha Gadzo

Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize.

Mohammadi was honoured “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”, said Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

Mohammadi’s prize highlights courage of Iranian women, UN rights office says

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohammadi highlights the courage and determination of Iranian women.

“We’ve seen their courage and determination in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detention,” OHCHR spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell said.

“They’ve been harassed for what they do or don’t wear. There are increasingly stringent legal, social and economic measures against them. This really is something that highlights the courage and determination of the women of Iran and how they are an inspiration to the world.”

Nobel peace prize committee ‘hopes’ Iran will free Mohammadi

The Norwegian Nobel Committee says it hopes Iran would release Mohammadi so she could attend the prize ceremony in December.

“If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her. So she can be present to receive this honour, which is what we primarily hope for,” Reiss-Andersen told a press conference.

‘A heart that breaks’

As well as not seeing her children for eight years, restrictions placed by the prison on her telephone calls means Mohammadi has not even heard their voices for more than a year and a half.

“My most incurable and indescribable suffering is the longing to be with my children, from whose lives I departed when they were eight,” she told AFP in September.

“The price of the struggle is not only torture and prison, it is a heart that breaks with every regret and a pain that strikes to the marrow of your bones.”

But she added: “I believe that as long as democracy, equality and freedom have not been achieved, we must continue to fight and sacrifice.”

‘The future of Iran is its women’, says German minister

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock says praises Mohammadi’s Nobel prize win and says her “fearless voice cannot be locked away”.

On X, Baerbock wrote, “Women. Life. Freedom. The [Nobel Peace Prize] to Narges Mohammadi and thus the women of Iran shows the power of women for freedom. Mohammadi’s fearless voice cannot be locked away, the future of Iran is its women.”

A history of arrests

The Nobel Prize has written a brief bio on Mohammadi on Twitter:

“As a young physics student Mohammadi distinguished herself as an advocate for equality and women’s rights. In 2011 she was arrested for the first time and sentenced to many years of imprisonment for her efforts to assist incarcerated activists and their families.

“After her release on bail, this year’s peace laureate Mohammadi immersed herself in a campaign against use of the death penalty. Her activism against the death penalty led to her re-arrest in 2015, and to a sentence of additional years behind walls.

“Last year’s wave of protests became known to the political prisoners held inside the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. From captivity, 2023 #NobelPeacePrize laureate Mohammadi has helped to ensure that the protests have not ebbed out.”

‘The most determined person I know’: Husband Taghi Rahmani

The activist “is the most determined person I know”, her husband Taghi Rahmani, who has been a refugee in France since 2012 with their two children, twins now aged 17, told AFP.

“She has three causes in her life – respect for human rights, her feminist commitment and justice for all the crimes that have been committed,” Rahmani said of his wife.

Who is Narges Mohammadi?

Narges Mohammadi, 51, currently jailed in the Evin prison in Tehran, is an Iranian writer, human rights activist and deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC).

Mohammadi is currently serving multiple sentences, amounting to 12 years, most recently for “spreading anti-state propaganda”, and was given 154 lashes as a result of the decision.

But Mohammadi has been in and out of prison for the last decade due to her activism and work on abolishing the death penalty in Iran and campaigning for women’s rights.

In 2022, she was only tried for five minutes before being given a sentence of eight years and 70 lashes.

Following the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran, Mohammadi has continued to report her experience of abuse as a woman in Evin prison.

Mohammadi becomes the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Al Jazeera