The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Sunday in Oslo to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi who, imprisoned in her country, was represented by her children.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Sunday in Oslo to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi who, imprisoned in her country, was represented by her children.
A fierce opponent of the compulsory wearing of the hijab for women and the death penalty in Iran, Ms. Mohammadi, arrested and sentenced many times in recent decades, is detained since 2021 in Evin prison in Tehran.
Crowned by the Nobel committee in October for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all“, she was therefore absent at the award ceremony at 1:00 p.m. (12:00 GMT) at Oslo City Hall.
In his place, his 17-year-old twins, Ali and Kiana, were presented with the award on his behalf. They read a speech that she managed to transmit from prison.
The winner is currently observing, according to her family, a hunger strike in solidarity with the Bahai communitythe largest religious minority in Iran, which says it is the victim of discrimination in many parts of society.
In fragile health, the 51-year-old activist had already stopped eating for several days in early November to obtain the right to be transferred to hospital without covering her head.
She is one of the main faces of the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran.
The movement, which saw women remove the veil, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was triggered by the death last year of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Aminiafter his arrest in Tehran for non-compliance with the strict Islamic dress code.
See her alive again?
Exiled in France since 2015, Kiana and her brother Ali have not seen their mother for almost nine years and say they do not know if they will see her alive again. He says he believes it, she doesn’t.
“The cause of ‘Women, Life, Liberty’, freedom in general and democracy are worth sacrificing for and giving one’s life for, because in the end these three things have no meaning. price”estimated Kiana during the press conference.
“As for seeing her alive again one day, personally, I’m quite pessimistic”she confided. “Maybe I will see her in 30 or 40 years but otherwise, I don’t think I will ever see her again but that doesn’t matter because my mother will always be with me in my heart and with my family.”
Ali, on the contrary, said to himself “very, very optimistic” although this will probably not happen “not in two, five or ten years.”
The protest in Iran has been severely repressed. According to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), 551 protesters, including dozens of women and children, were killed by security forces, and thousands more arrested.
According to their lawyer in France, Me Chirinne Ardakanni, Mahsa Amini’s parents and brother were prevented from leaving Iranian territory to receive, Sunday during a parallel ceremony in France, THESakharov Prize awarded to the young woman posthumously.
As for Narges Mohammadi, in the more than century-old history of the Nobel Peace Prize, she is the fifth winner to receive the award while in detention after the German Carl von Ossietzky, the Burmese Aung San Suu Kyi, the Chinese Liu Xiaobo and the Belarusian Ales Beliatski.
The Nobel Prizes in other disciplines (literature, chemistry, medicine, physics, economics) must also be awarded during the day in Stockholm.
They are awarded each year on December 10, in memory of Alfred Nobel who died on this day in 1896.
