The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran” which she has been leading from a prison in Tehran for almost six months.
Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi received the Nobel Peace Prize this Friday, October 6, 2023. Also winner of the RSF Courage Prize, she has continued her fight for human rights from a prison in Tehran for almost six months now. She was imprisoned for her activist positions, notably defending women’s rights in Iran. The Nobel Prize Commission justified the award to Narges Mohammadi for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all.”
Nobel Prize President Berit Reiss-Andersen said she hoped the winner would be released by December so she could receive her award. “If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her,” she said. “So she can be present to receive this honor, which is what we hope for above all.” The UN also called for the release of Narges Mohammadi this Friday, October 6: “The case of Narges Mohammadi is emblematic of the enormous risks that women take to defend the rights of all Iranians, assured the High Commission of the UN Human Rights, in a message to AFP. We demand his release and that of all human rights defenders imprisoned in Iran.”
It is therefore a political choice that the Nobel committee made. The 51-year-old woman was convicted in 2016 in Iran for creating and leading a human rights movement and campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty. Narges Mohammadi is also an activist and vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, the movement set up by a previous Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, awarded in 2003.