Prize spotlights Iran’s oppression of women

The award of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Iran’s jailed rights activist Narges Mohammadi is a recognition of her courage and determination in fighting for freedom and equality of women and should inspire all women who are denied their rights. Mohammadi has for long campaigned for women’s rights, abolition of the death penalty, and an improvement in prison conditions in Iran, which has instituted a most oppressive regime against women. She is serving multiple sentences in a Tehran prison amounting to about 12 years’ imprisonment. She followed the path of Shirin Abadi, another rights activist, who was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her fight for women in Iran. The Nobel Committee said in its citation that Narges was awarded the prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”

Narges has been arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. She has championed women’s rights in Iran from her early days as a local journalist through protests and other activities. She was a leading organiser of anti-hijab demonstrations, which started in September last year after a young woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, was killed while in the custody of the Iranian morality police. The demonstrations have continued, and the government has tried to suppress the protests and bring the women under greater control. It has adopted very harsh measures, including the award of death sentences to deal with protests. Iran is among the countries which have the highest number of executions as punishment for protests. The death sentence is the ultimate denial of human rights of a person, and Narges has campaigned against it too. 

In her statement following the announcement of the prize, Narges said: The global support and recognition of my human rights advocacy makes me more resolved, more responsible, more passionate and more hopeful.” Human rights and democratic freedoms are increasingly being suppressed all over the world. Ideological regimes, theocratic states and authoritarian governments of all kinds have been in the forefront on the oppression of women’s rights. The Nobel Prize, or any prize for that matter, becomes more relevant and takes on more meaning when it is awarded to persons who resist and oppose the policies and actions of such repressive regimes. They do it at great cost to themselves for the greater good of the community. The Nobel Committee has hoped that Narges will be released before the prize ceremony in December. That is unlikely as Iran has already described the prize as a sign of “the interventionist and anti-Iran policies of some European countries.”