Iran: Iran's first woman judge before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi's work as a human rights activist has landed her in jail and seen her branded a threat to the Islamic system.
A vocal campaigner for the rights of women and children, Ms Ebadi has acted as defence lawyer for a wide range of political activists, earning a reputation for taking on cases others were too afraid to touch. "It's not easy to be a woman today in Iran because they have laws that are against the rights of women," she told a news conference in Paris yesterday. "This prize gives me the energy to continue my fight." Ms Ebadi was prevented from working as a judge after the Islamic revolution when Sharia law was enforced.
A lawyer, writer and part-time lecturer at Tehran University, she has spent much of her time since the revolution campaigning for better rights for women and children in her native country. She argues passionately that Sharia law can be adapted to modern times without undermining Islam. "There is no contradiction between Islam and human rights," she said. "If a country abuses human rights in the name of Islam, then it is not the fault of Islam.
Ms Ebadi found herself on the wrong side of the law in 2000 when she was accused of disseminating a politically explosive videotape of a violent Islamic vigilante group member who confessed to links with conservative politicians in Iran. That incident landed Ms Ebadi in Tehran's notorious Evin prison where scores of political dissidents are held.
In solitary confinement, she wrote: "Angrily I am trying to write on the cement wall with the bottom of my spoon that we are born to suffer because we are born in the Third World. Time and place are imposed upon us. So let's be patient as there is no other choice." Among her books translated into English are The Rights of the Child, on children's rights in Iran, and History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran. She is also a co-editor of the forthcoming book Democracy, Human Rights and Islam in Modern Iran. - (Reuters)