Jailed Iranian women’s activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize

The jailed Iranian rights activist Narges Mohammadi was on Friday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”, in a boost for opponents of the Islamic regime.

The Nobel committee said the 2023 award “also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women”.

One of Iran’s best-known activists, Ms Mohammadi (51) has been arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. She has spent most of the years since 2009 in prison, where she has continued campaigning, including for the rights of women in the country’s jails.

The prize comes just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini (22), in the custody of the Iranian morality police, which triggered months of protests calling for a secular government and for greater freedoms for Iranians, in one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s government in decades.

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Speaking to the Financial Times in 2021, before her latest jailing, Ms Mohammadi said she would continue her work even at the risk of further prison sentences. She has also campaigned against the death penalty.

“The ultimate solution is to have a secular state, but for now the alternative is to insist and persist as we [first] build up our civil society,” she said.

“Women’s message is we are not going to be silent, and we [will] disobey the law” which deprives women of equal rights such as the right to divorce, said Ms Mohammadi at the time.

Charges against her have included forming illegal groups, acting against national security and spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic. Some of her campaigning has been carried out through the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.

[ ‘I sit in front of the cell window every day and dream of a free Iran’ ]

The Nobel committee invoked Ms Mohammadi’s slogan, “Woman, life, freedom”. Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, called on Tehran to release Ms Mohammadi. “If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her so that she can be present to receive this honour [on December 10th],” Ms Reiss-Andersen told reporters.

The former physics student and newspaper columnist has received other international awards such as the Per Anger Prize, awarded by the Swedish government in 2011, for her human rights work.

A senior Iranian government figure suggested the prize pointed to an international conspiracy against its rule, an idea it frequently invokes in the face of campaigning by Iranian women.

“It’s just too obvious, isn’t it?” wrote Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to Iranian diplomats including its nuclear negotiators, on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “The West has failed in its regime change operation, and this will change nothing. It only shows how different entities in the West are interlinked.”

Advocates of reform in the country, however, welcomed the news of Ms Mohammadi’s award. “Congratulations to all freedom seekers and Iranians,” said Abdollah Momeni, a former political prisoner, on Instagram, describing Ms Mohammadi as a woman “who bravely fought against tyranny as a genuine defender of human rights”.

The Islamic republic has enforced strict rules on women’s participation in society since it took power in a 1979 revolution, from rules on headscarves to lesser legal rights than men in divorce cases, custody disputes and inheritances. Campaigners also report broader social problems affecting women, such as widespread domestic violence.

More than 300 people were killed during the protests that followed Ms Amini’s death, but the tough government response prompted some Iranian families to try to stop younger members from protesting. Ms Mohammadi said in 2021 she had witnessed growing numbers of younger women being incarcerated for fighting discrimination, as more than 70 prisoners were crammed into four small prison rooms.

As the protests escalated following Ms Amini’s death, many women also began to refuse to obey the country’s headscarf rules.

Supporters of the Iranian women’s movement welcomed the news of the Nobel Prize as international recognition of their struggle.

“This is the best news I’ve heard in a very long time,” said Hamideh, a 34-year-old private company employee. “I’m amazed how the Islamic republic could not make her kneel down, and this prize will make it even more difficult for them.”

United Nations secretary general António Guterres said: “This Nobel Peace Prize is a tribute to all those women who are fighting for their rights at the risk of their freedom, their health and even their lives.”

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023