Nobel Peace Prize 2023 awarded to jailed Iranian women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi
- The awards committee said the prize honoured all those behind recent unprecedented demonstrations in Iran, and called for the release of Mohammadi from prison
- The Peace Prize was announced in Oslo, following medicine, physics, chemistry and literature prizes this week; the Nobel Prize awards were launched 122 years ago
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in her native Iran and her efforts to promote human rights and freedom.
Mohammadi, 51, has continued her struggle even after the regime in Tehran convicted her five times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in jail and 154 lashes, the Oslo-based Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement Friday.
The award-making committee said the prize honoured all those behind recent unprecedented demonstrations in Iran and called for the release of Mohammadi who has campaigned for both women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty.
“This prize is first and foremost a recognition of the very important work of a whole movement in Iran, with its undisputed leader, Narges Mohammadi,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the committee.
“If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, they will release her so that she can be present to receive this honour [in December], which is what we primarily hope for.”
Mohammadi is currently serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars. Charges include spreading propaganda against the state.
She is the deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, a non-governmental organisation led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
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Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, said the award would further encourage her struggle and the movement she leads.
“This Nobel Prize will embolden Narges’ fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is in fact a prize for the woman, life and freedom movement,” Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Rahmani said in an interview at his home in Paris.
“This prize is for all the people of Iran, for human rights activists,” he added.
“Narges and people like her have chosen this kind of life and, if they are supported, their motivation will increase to pursue their goals.”
Awarding the prize to Mohammadi is seen as a rebuke to Tehran’s theocratic leaders and boost for anti-government protesters.
There was no immediate official reaction from Tehran, which calls the protests Western-led subversion.
But semi-official news agency Fars said Mohammadi had “received her prize from the Westerners” after making headlines “due to her acts against the national security.”
Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first one since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the award in 2021 jointly with Russia’s Dmitry Muratov.
The climax of the Nobel season, the Peace Prize winner was announced on Friday in Oslo, Norway, by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Last year, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the Peace Prize went to a symbolic trio – Russian human rights group Memorial, Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties and jailed Belarusian rights advocate Ales Bialiatski.
All three represent the nations at the centre of the war in Ukraine, which they oppose.
Other previous winners include the UN World Food Programme, Barack Obama when he was US president, and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were established in the will of Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel, whose invention of dynamite made him rich and famous, and have been awarded since 1901.
Even though the rest of the prizes are picked and announced in Sweden, Nobel decreed that the Peace Prize should be judged in neighbouring Norway.
The Peace Prize is the fifth of this year’s prizes to be announced. A day earlier, the Nobel committee awarded Norwegian writer Jon Fosse the Literature Prize.
On Wednesday, the Chemistry Prize went to US scientists Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov.
The Physics Prize on Tuesday went to French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian-born Ferenc Krausz.
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Hungarian-American Katalin Kariko and American Drew Weissman won the Medicine Prize on Monday.
Nobels season ends on Monday with the announcement of the winner of the Economics Prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
The prizes are handed out at awards ceremonies in December in Oslo and Stockholm.
They carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (about US$1 million). Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma when they collect their Nobel Prizes at the award ceremonies in December.
Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg
