Ebadi wins Nobel Prize in milestone for human rights.
By Rudabeh Shahbazi
Assistant Perspectives Editor
Amid escalating tensions with the West, Iran is in the news again, but not for its weapons or terrorists. Iran is in the news because a female human rights lawyer has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Behind the violent Middle East conflicts that saturate television screens, Shirin Ebadi’s prize divulges to the world that future sanguine East-West relations are both possible and anticipated.
At a time when Iran has re-emerged into the pessimistic public sphere, a notorious member of the “Axis of Evil” lights a candle of hope to illuminate the darkness. At a time when the women of Iran are depicted as invisible and powerless entities in a repressive country, the Nobel Prize Committee has acknowledged the vital element of hope that continues to endure alongside injustice in Iran, recognizing the tireless yet unnoticed human rights activists and reformers for peace by rewarding Ebadi with the prize.
Ebadi personifies a side of our culture most don’t expect to see: a highly educated, professional Muslim woman, who openly advocates human rights in the face of dangerous opposition. She directs our attention to an Iran that is very different from the one dominating the news — a dynamic Iran that is misunderstood by the outside world, an Iran of reformers struggling against hardliners.
Ebadi was forced to surrender her status as Iran’s first female judge after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Instead of ceding her cause, she found new ways to fight for her commitment to women, children, refugees, writers and intellectuals.
Ebadi has contributed to changes in divorce and family law and has set up crisis phone lines for children. Her campaign granted legal rights to children born outside marriage.
Ebadi has given a powerful life boost to the reform movement. She has overcome magnificent odds, and is now internationally recognized to encourage those who want the freedom to raise their voices. She is a sign that cries are being heard.
The prize is an inspiration for all those who struggle for human rights and democracy in Iran, in the Muslim world and around the globe. This relatively unknown Iranian lawyer has forced her way against the current to emerge as a relentless machine urging reform in Iran, and doing so in a peaceful and effective way.
Ebadi’s accomplishments can no longer be cast aside or held back from mainstream media coverage. She insists the duty of reform must be left to Iranians, and that there is power in their efforts, especially the youth, who make up the majority of the population.
“The time of revolutions is finished,” Ebadi said. “The Islamic republic cannot continue if it does not evolve.”
Ebadi is a valiant coach who teaches Iranians to demand their rights through education and hard work rather than protest and confrontation. “If just a few people want something it has little effect,” she told Reuters, a British news agency. “But if many people ask for one thing I’m sure they can have it. The important thing is to inform people.”
Ebadi acknowledges that she faces “unavoidable dangers.” She has already been threatened, and has spent time in prison and solitary confinement for her outspokenness. In an era of violence, she has consistently supported nonviolence.
The audacious lawyer who took on cases of political murder, repression and domestic violence in Iran everyone else was too terrified to handle, is now defending Afsaneh Noruzi, a woman who was sentenced to death for killing a policeman while he attempted to rape her.
She has also represented the families of assassinated intellectuals and an Iranian-Canadian journalist who was killed in prison. She came down on those who used violence to quiet peaceful student protesters.
When Ebadi, who was being considered against Pope John Paul II, was announced as the 11th woman ever to win the peace prize, she immediately demanded the release of political prisoners in Iran.
She marks a milestone in fighting unyieldingly for freedom of expression, which she says is the most important issue to improve Iran. “When there’s no freedom of expression how can we object about human rights?” she asked.
Ebadi, who served as the president of the city court of Tehran, forces the world to realize that Islam can be compatible with democracy if the sharia — an Islamic-inspired law — is interpreted in the diplomatic manner as it should be. She uses the Islamic code to argue against those who abuse religion to violate human rights, such as imposing inferior status for women.
She says Iran must abolish Islamic punishments, such as stoning and amputations, for various crimes. She also — illegally — pushes for separation of church and state and founded the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in Iran.
Ebadi says that religious people are against terrorism and violence of any kind and hopes that her country won’t be faced with a military strike. “We hope that there will be no attack against Iran, because Iran does not have the atomic bomb and the Iranian people are peaceful,” Ebadi said. “After so many years of war, they are tired of conflict.”
She did not follow the thousands of Iranians who fled abroad after the revolution that transformed her world and the structure of Iran, courageously demonstrating her love and commitment to her homeland and people by staying in the country that stripped her of her achievements and rights.
Ebadi will donate her $1.3 million prize money to her reforms. “This prize does not belong to me,” she said. “It belongs to all the Iranian people. It belongs to all those who have been trying to bring human rights and democracy.”
Ebadi reminds discouraged Iranians that there is definite hope for progress. Her accomplishment serves as a beacon of courage and strength in the fight for human rights in Iran and worldwide.
For frustrated and assertive Iranian youth in particular, the prize is a political weapon to arm them with a voice that can no longer be crushed, a voice that fights for freedom, democracy and human rights.
It is a voice that prompts us to demonstrate our ability and talents in the struggle for humans. She conveys a different Iran — an Iran that speaks out, that protests, that struggles to be heard. She represents ceaseless hope and valor.
November 06, 2003