(Image: twitter.com/freenargesmhmd)
The Norwegian Nobel committee acknowledged the Iranian activist Narges Safie Mohammadi with the Nobel Peace Prize 2023, honouring her far-fetched staggering benefactions to the bailiwick of human rights promotion. A true recipient from an unpropitious topsoil of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The trajectory of 51-year-old Narges Safie Mohammadi to become a leading human rights activist of Iran, a country which is the worst amongst while considering women rights, is astounding. The never-ending torments and eternal dejections are not just fancy tales, but abet factors of the courageous saga of a dynamic lady to obtain freedom and rights each human is born to.
She fought, fought again and again for the freedom of all, and to promote human rights, even the daredevil struggles has come with tremendous personal costs. She was arrested 13 times, convicted five times and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison. It’s sad, but it’s brave, yes… she is still in prison.
Narges Mohammadi was born on April 21 in 1972 in Zanjan. She was admitted to Imam Khomeini International University from where she learned physics and became a professional engineer.
Ms Mohammadi was an active member of the political student group Tashakkol Daaneshjuyi Roshangaraan – “Enlightened Student Group’’ – and was arrested twice for writing in support of women’s rights in student newspaper during her university career. She also worked as a journalist, a columnist in multiple reform-minded newspapers, and published a book of political essays titled The Reforms, The Strategy and The Tactics.
It was in 2003, Ms Mohammadi joined the Defenders of Human Rights Center, an Iranian Human Rights Organisation, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. She later rose to the position of vice-president of the organisation. In 1993, she married fellow pro-reform journalist Taghi Rahmani. Mr Rahmani moved to France in 2012 after serving a total of 14 years of prison sentences, but Ms Mohammadi remained to continue her human rights work. They have two children, twins.
In 2011, Ms Mohammadi was arrested and sentenced to many years of imprisonment for her efforts to assist incarcerated activists and their families. She immersed herself in a campaign against death penalty once released, and for that rearrested in 2015. Since 2022, more than 860 prisoners have been punished by death in Iran.
She bravely stood opposing the Iranian regime’s systematic use of torture and sexualised violence against political prisoners, especially women, practiced in Iran prisons. While in jail, she was denied of calls and visitors for expressing support to solidarity actions pointing political prisoners.
The country witnessed violent protests after a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed in the custody of the morality police on September 16, 2022. The regime lashed hard on the protestors by which more than 500 demonstrators were killed, thousands injured, and many blinded by rubber bullets fired by the police. At least 20,000 people were arrested and held in custody.
As the Nobel Prize organisation describes, ‘’Narges Mohammadi is a woman, a human rights advocate, and a freedom fighter. In awarding her this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour her courageous fight for human rights, freedom, and democracy in Iran’’. The prize recognises thousands of people who fought against theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.
