Narges Mohammadi & Nobel Peace Prize
For many years, Narges Mohammadi has fought against the systematic discrimination and oppression of women in Iran. She is at the forefront of acourageous fight for human rights, freedom, and democracy. As early as the 1990s, Mohammadi began her fight for equality and women’s rights. In 2003 she became involved with the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran, an organisation founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Mohammadi has assisted incarcerated activists and their families. She has been active in campaigning against the death penalty and against the regime’s systematic use of torture and sexualised violence in Iranian prisons.
Mohammadi’s brave struggle has come at tremendous personal cost. Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. She has been imprisoned in Evin prison, in Tehran, since 2021.
The Iranian regime restricts its people’s freedom to dress as they wish and express themselves as they wish. The authorities do not allow criticism, and critics risk being imprisoned, tortured and killed. With such strict laws, many people are forced into silence. Mohammadi however, and many with her, still do not allow themselves to be silenced.
“Woman – Life – Freedom”
In my opinion, no protest movement in recent decades has had as great an impact as “Woman, Life, Freedom” on the lower strata of society, including religious groups. Some might argue that the compulsory face-covering law has still not been abolished, and even that a new bill, even more authoritarian and discriminatory against women, is currently before parliament.
But, in my opinion, this movement has brought about an intellectual, cultural and social evolution that is broader, more lasting and more radical than any legal-political change within the state structure. Never before has the goal of transition from autocratic theocracy to democracy, freedom and equality been such a popular national demand. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement has confirmed the principle of this transition. It launched an unambiguous appeal to the whole world. Although the government has emptied the streets with relentless repression, protests continue in every corner of the country, chanting civic, economic, environmental and other demands.
The Iranian people have turned the page on this regime. Subjected to repression, arrests, prison sentences and death sentences, shot at point-blank range during demonstrations, the population has withdrawn from the streets without really going home or adopting a passive or servile attitude. I think they will take to the streets again at the next opportunity. Civil resistance is always powerful and remarkable, and it’s the women who lead the strongest civil disobedience actions.
”Standing alongside the brave mothers of Iran, I will continue to fight against the relentless discrimination, tyranny and gender-based oppression by the oppressive religious government until the liberation of women.”
Nobel Peace Prize 2023 Lecture
I write this message from behind the high, cold walls of a prison. I am a Middle Eastern woman, and come from a region which, despite its rich civilization, is now trapped amid war, the fire of terrorism, and extremism. I am an Iranian woman, a proud and honorable contributor to civilization, who is currently under the oppression of a despotic religious government. I am a woman prisoner who, in enduring deep and soul-crushing suffering resulting from the lack of freedom, equality, and democracy, has recognized the necessity of her existence and has found faith.
In the midst of the flames of violence and the perpetuation of tyranny, our cause has for years been more about survival than the improvement of our quality of life. Essentially, it has become about the possibility to stay alive, survive, and live in a world where human life is exposed, without protection or shield, to the power of arrogant authoritarian governments, and remains helpless against everything.
Awards & Honors
The Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 was awarded to the imprisoned Iranian human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi. More than 20 years of fighting for women’s rights made her a symbol of freedom and standard-bearer in the struggle against the Iranian theocracy. In 2003, she joined the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by that year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi. In the years that followed, Ms Mohammadi helped imprisoned activists, led a campaign against the death penalty and criticized the regime’s use of torture and sexualized violence. The freedom struggle cost her dearly. She was arrested 13 times and sentenced to 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. In October 2023, when her selection as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was announced, she was locked in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award
Targeted by the Iranian government for more than 30 years for her writings and human rights activism, Narges Mohammadi is currently jailed on false charges of “spreading anti-state propaganda” and defamation. Mohammadi, the 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write honoree, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 6, 2023. For two decades, Mohammadi has fiercely defended women, political prisoners, and ethnic minorities, working with Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi’s Defenders of Human Rights Center, where she is vice president. She was first targeted by Iranian authorities as a college student when she wrote about women’s rights for her student newspaper and was arrested at a political meeting.
UNESCO
Three imprisoned Iranian women journalists awarded 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom PrizeNiloofar Hamedi, Elaheh Mohammadi and Narges Mohammadi have been named as the laureates of the 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, following the recommendation of an International Jury of media professionals. The Award Ceremony will take place on the evening of 2 May in New York, in the presence of Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO.
Total Sentencing and Bans
35
years sentenced in total
154
lashes to be received
2
years of living on exile after prison
9
years of prison time to come
135
days in solitary cells
Free Narges Now!
Join scores of prominent writers, artists, and civil society organizations, as well as hundreds of free speech and human rights advocates from around the globe, in demanding that the Iranian government free Narges Mohammadi from prison. Narges has dedicated her life to the struggle for freedom and women's rights in Iran at a cost to her personal health and well-being, and this petition was started to urge Iranian authorities to allow her to travel to Oslo for the Nobel Prize award ceremony in December 2023. As Narges remains unjustly jailed, we must continue to press for her immediate and unconditional release.
The time has come to declare gender apartheid a crime
Institutionalized oppression, tyranny, and discrimination against women in Iran and Afghanistan are evident and blatant. We, in solidarity with other freedom-loving women and men in Iran, Afghanistan, and around the world, demand the criminalization of gender and sexual apartheid. This is crucial for holding criminal governments, including the Islamic Republic regime and the Taliban, accountable.
We urgently need actions to stop this inhumane and unsafe repression. Criminalizing gender and sexual apartheid, providing a more precise legal definition in international laws, issuing statements condemning gender apartheid systems in Iran and Afghanistan, reflecting the experiences and narratives of women who are increasingly subjected to this destructive tyranny, supporting women’s civil institutions in Iranian and Afghan societies, and backing and protecting women’s rights defenders suppressed by the regimes are among the necessary measures.
It is enough to amend the draft of crimes against humanity at the United Nations to include sexual and gender apartheid. It is not a difficult path and is achievable. Women in Iran and Afghanistan are awaiting the immediate attention and action of the United Nations for what has become inevitable.
Latest News
'White Torture'
I've been in solitary confinement four times. I consider the practice of ``white torture,`` in other words incarceration in solitary confinement by the government, to be unjust and brutal. The solitary confinement cell is the ``mother`` of all executions in Iran. In the course of my work on human rights and against the death penalty, I have learned that many of those executed, subjected to the physical, mental and psychic torture of incarceration in solitary confinement, give false confessions, which then form the basis, illegally, of their death sentence.
