News Desk : dhakamirror.com
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to jailed Iranian human rights activist, Narges Mohammadi, for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran.
According to the Nobel Prize Committee, Narges Mohammadi’s struggle has come at tremendous personal costs. She has been “arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes”.
The Iranian human rights activist is serving multiple sentences in Evin Prison in Tehran, according to Front Line Defenders rights organisation, according to news agency Reuters.
Narges Mohammadi also faces charges of “spreading propaganda” against the Iranian regime.
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, Reuters reported.
Narges Mohammadi’s activism dates back to the 1990s when, as a physics student, she began advocating for equality and women’s rights. She has consistently opposed “systematic discrimination and oppression”, the Nobel committee said.
She has supported the “struggle for the right to live full and dignified lives”, a cause that has often been met with “persecution, imprisonment, torture and even death” in Iran.
Her advocacy extends to “freedom of expression and the right of independence”, challenging rules that suppress women’s rights and freedoms, the committee stated.
From within the Evin Prison in Tehran, Narges Mohammadi supported last year’s protesters in the wake of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini’s death last year and organised solidarity actions.
Even under strict prison conditions, she managed to communicate with the outside world, with The New York Times publishing her article on the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death. “The more of us they lock up, the stronger we become,” was the headline of her article in The New York Times.
