Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” the committee said in its citation.
Mohammadi is one of Iran’s leading human rights activists, who has campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty. She 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 deputy director and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) in Iran. She has advocated for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran, as well as for prisoners’ rights. As a direct result of her human rights work she has been imprisoned on several occasions since 1998, on trumped-up charges, including “colluding against state security” and “propaganda against the state”.
In the face of relentless persecution by the Iranian authorities, Narges Mohammadi has remained a defiant champion of human rights and democracy in Iran. On her 50th birthday on 21 April 2022, shed posted a pre-recorded video message of hope and solidarity, in which she said:
“Today, I am hopeful. The vast protest movements with labour rights calls among teachers, women and young people, give me hope. Of course we are being suppressed by the [Islamic Republic of Iran], but we believe that is the sign of my people’s power and resilience and the weakness of the oppressors.”
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 Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or around $1 million, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
