Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned for 2 years, condemns the Iranian authorities as her youngsters settle for her award on her behalf
Kiana Rahmani (C) and Ali Rahmani (L), youngsters of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, and her husband Taghi Rahmani, waves from the balcony throughout a torchlight procession organized by The Norwegian Peace Council [Getty]
Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi denounced a “tyrannical and anti-women spiritual” authorities in Iran, in a speech delivered by her youngsters on Sunday who accepted the award in her absence.
“The Iranian individuals will dismantle obstruction and despotism by way of their persistence,” Mohammadi mentioned within the speech.
“Haven’t any doubt- that is sure,” she mentioned.
Mohammadi, who has campaigned in opposition to the obligatory carrying of the hijab and the demise penalty in Iran, has been held since 2021 in Tehran’s Evin jail.
As a substitute, her 17-year-old twins Ali and Kiana, each residing in exile in France since 2015, acquired the award on her behalf, studying a speech she managed to smuggle out of her cell.
“I’m a Center Japanese lady, and are available from a area which, regardless of its wealthy civilisation, is now trapped amid conflict, the hearth of terrorism, and extremism,” she mentioned in a message that was written “behind the excessive, chilly partitions of a jail”.
“I’m an Iranian lady, a proud and honourable contributor to civilisation, who’s at present beneath the oppression of a despotic spiritual authorities,” she mentioned.
A chair was left symbolically empty on the ceremony, the place a portrait of the laureate was displayed.
Mohammadi was one of many girls who spearheaded the “Lady, Life, Freedom” rebellion, which noticed months-long protests throughout Iran triggered by the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Amini, an Iranian Kurdish lady, died on September 16, 2022, whereas being held by Iran’s spiritual police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s costume code for girls.
The motion that sprung up within the wake of Amini’s demise seeks the top of Iran’s imposition of a headband on all girls and an finish to the Muslim cleric-led authorities in Tehran.
“The necessary hijab imposed by the federal government is neither a spiritual obligation or a cultural custom, however somewhat a way of sustaining authority and submission all through society,” Mohammadi mentioned within the speech learn earlier than the Norwegian royal household and overseas dignitaries.
Watch the very second Narges Mohammadi’s youngsters collected this yr’s Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma on behalf of their mom who’s at present imprisoned. Mohammadi was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on human rights.
Be taught extra: https://t.co/8gkwD5Cuqb pic.twitter.com/NdB3HXNZNv
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) December 10, 2023
She mentioned Iran “is essentially alienating itself from its individuals”, denouncing authorities repression, the shortage of an unbiased judicial system, propaganda and censorship, and corruption.
In distinction to the fanfare in Oslo, Mohammadi could be observing a starvation strike on the similar time, in solidarity with the Baha’i neighborhood, based on her household.
Representatives of Baha’i, Iran’s largest spiritual minority, say it’s the goal of focused discrimination.
Mohammadi is the fifth laureate within the greater than 120-year historical past of the Nobel Peace Prize to obtain the award whereas detained.
She follows Germany’s Carl von Ossietzky, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, China’s Liu Xiaobo and Belarus’s Ales Beliatski.
“Narges Mohammadi’s battle can be similar to that of Albert Lutuli, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, which befell over a interval of greater than 30 years earlier than the apartheid system in South Africa got here to an finish,” the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, mentioned in a speech.
Arrested 13 occasions, sentenced 5 occasions to a complete of 31 years in jail and 154 lashes, Mohammadi has spent a lot of the previous 20 years out and in of jail.
Her twin youngsters, who haven’t seen their mom for nearly 9 years, do not know if they will ever see her alive once more.
Detained Iran protesters raped, sexually assaulted: Amnesty.https://t.co/qV2WlIqQu9
— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) December 6, 2023
“Personally I am somewhat pessimistic,” Kiana Mohammadi informed reporters on Saturday, whereas her brother Ali mentioned he remained “very, very optimistic”.
Protests in Iran triggered by Amini’s demise have been severely repressed.
The Iran Human Rights group (IHR) says 551 demonstrators, together with dozens of girls and kids, have been killed by safety forces, and hundreds have been arrested.
On Saturday, the lawyer for Amini’s household mentioned her dad and mom and brother, who have been because of obtain the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought on Amini’s behalf at a ceremony on December 13, was being prohibited from leaving Iran.
The laureates of the opposite Nobel prizes, in literature, chemistry, drugs, physics and economics, have been introduced their awards by Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at a separate ceremony in Sweden, earlier than heading to a lavish banquet at Stockholm’s Metropolis Corridor.
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