Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and promoting human rights and freedom for all. “She fights for women against systematic discrimination and oppression,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who announced the prize in Oslo. BREAKING NEWS The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2023 #NobelPeacePrize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/2fyzoYkHyf — The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2023 Authorities arrested Mohammadi in November after she attended a memorial for a victim of violent 2019 protests. Before being jailed, Mohammadi was vice president of the banned Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran. Mohammadi has been close to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who founded the centre. Mohammadi 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. 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. Among this year’s contenders were the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, and UN secretary general António Guterres. The committee had a total of 351 candidates to choose from (259 of which are individuals and 92 organisations). The winner was awarded a gold medal, a diploma and 11 million Swedish krona. Human rights groups from Russia and Ukraine — Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties — won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the jailed Belarusian advocate Ales Bialiatski. The laureates were honoured for “an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power” in their respective countries. The Ukrainian group, Center for Civil Liberties, “engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population” since the invasion was launched in February last year, the committee said. Bialiatski, meanwhile, has documented human rights abuses in Belarus since the 1980s. He founded the organization Viasna, or Spring, in 1996 after a referendum that consolidated the authoritarian powers of president and close Russian ally, Alexander Lukashenko.
