SNarges Mohammadi, who today won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, is serving a ten-year prison sentence in the Evin prison of Tehran. In prison for “spreading anti-state propaganda”, she won the recognition awarded by the Norwegian Committee precisely for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all.
Who is Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize
Narges Mohammadi has paid and pays for her battles every day. With imprisonment, torture and the separation of her from her husband and her two children (they live in exile in France, and she hasn’t seen them for 8 years). The Nobel Committee underlined that “the Iranian regime arrested her 13 times, sentenced her five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.” You recalled his “courageous fight against the death penalty”. Now, the same committee is demanding that Iran release her so she can collect the award.
Fifty-one year old Narges Mohammadi studied Physics and then became an engineer. But for years she has combined her technical career with that of a columnist for some newspapers in favor of women’s rights. And from prison you also organized protests following the killing of Mahsa Amini: you wrote essays and organized seminars for women prisoners on their rights.
The second Iranian woman to win the award
Mohammadi is the second Iranian woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2003 she went to Shirin Ebadi, a human rights lawyer, mentor and longtime colleague of Mohammadi. The two women worked together in Iran at the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by Ebadi in 2001 and closed after a violent raid in 2009.
In May, the United Nations also honored Mohammadi with the World Press Freedom Award.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was not easy. As the Norwegian Committee revealed in February (unlike the other prizes, the Peace Prize is awarded to Oslo), there were 305 nominations.
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