Iran: the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Narges Mohammadi

Paris, 6 October 2023 – The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, journalist and spokesperson for the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), one of the FIDH’s member organisations in Iran. This is the fourth time that this prize has been awarded to a person or an organisation affiliated to FIDH.

“FIDH is overjoyed by the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight for freedom and against authoritarian rule,” said Alice Mogwe, FIDH President. “Today, we call on the Iranian authorities to guarantee her physical integrity and psychological well-being under all circumstances, drop all charges against her, and release her immediately and unconditionally, along with all other human rights defenders arbitrarily detained in the country.”

Together with its other member organisation in Iran, the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI), FIDH has been systematically documenting and denouncing the judicial persecution and harassment of Narges Mohammadi. She was brutally arrested in November 2021 while taking part in a ceremony to pay tribute to a victim killed during anti-government protests in November 2019. She was sent to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, where she was sometimes placed in solitary confinement during her 30-month imprisonment to which she had been sentenced in May 2021 for her human rights activism. Following several summary trials, Narges Mohammadi is now serving a total prison sentence of 12 years and nine months. Between 2015 and 2020, she was arbitrarily detained in Zanjan prison, where her health deteriorated. Throughout her imprisonment, she has suffered physical assaults and sexual abuses.

“Just yesterday, Narges Mohammadi managed to send a message of solidarity from prison to Armita Garawand, a 16-year-old girl who is now in a coma for refusing to wear the headscarf,” said Karim Lahidji, FIDH Honorary President and President of LDDHI. “Her determination and courage remind us all that we must fight relentlessly for women’s rights in Iran and around the world.”

This is the fourth time that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a person or an organisation affiliated to FIDH: Alès Bialatski, former FIDH Vice-President, who is currently detained in Belarus, and its two member organisations from Russia and Ukraine, Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), received the distinction in 2022. The Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, head of DHRC, and the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LTDH), also a member of the FIDH, received the award in 2003 and 2015, respectively.

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