Shirin Ebadi

Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی; born 21 June 1947) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran. On December 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.

Life and early career

Ebadi was born in Hamadan, Iran. Her father was Mohammad Ali Ebadi, the city's chief notary public and a professor of commercial law. The family moved to Tehran in 1948.

Ebadi entered the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965, and participated in the entry exam for judges immediately after graduation in 1969. She officially started her career as a judge in March, 1970, after a six-month internship period. She continued her studies in University of Tehran in the meanwhile, and received a master's degree in law in 1971. In 1975, she became the first woman in Iranian law history to head a legislative branch.

Ebadi was assigned to a lower position, actually the same branch's secretary, following the Iranian revolution in 1979, when conservative clerics insisted that judgement is forbidden by women in Islam. After protests by her and other female judges, they were assigned to a slightly higher position, that of "law expert." She finally asked for early retirement when she could not stand her situation.

Because of rejected applications, Ebadi was not able to work as a lawyer until 1993, when she was able to open a law office. She used the free time to write a few books and many articles in Iranian periodicals, which made her known widely.

Ebadi as a lawyer

Ebadi now lectures law at the University of Tehran and is a campaigner for strengthening the legal status of children and women, the latter of which played a key role in the May 1997 landslide presidential election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami.

As a lawyer, she is known for taking up cases of liberal and dissident figures who have fallen foul of the judiciary, one of the bastions of hardline power in Iran. She has represented the family of Dariush Forouhar, a dissident intellectual and politician who was found stabbed to death at his home. His wife, Parvaneh, was also killed at the same time.

The couple were among several dissidents who died in a spate of grisly murders that terrorized Iran's intellectual community. Suspicion fell on extremist hard-liners determined to put a stop to the more liberal climate fostered by President Khatami, who championed freedom of speech. The murders were found to be committed by a team of the employees of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, of which the leader Saeed Emami committed suicide in jail before being brought to the court.

She also represented the family of Ezzat Ebrahimnezhad, the only officially accepted case of murder in the Iranian student protests of July 1999. It was in the process of this case that in 2000, Ebadi was accused of distributing the video-taped confession of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of one of the main pressure lobby force, Ansar-e Hezbollah, who accused them of receiving orders from high-level conservative authorities to attack members of President Khatami's cabinet. She claimed that she had only videotaped Amir Farshad Ebrahimi's confessions in order to present them to the court. This case was named "Tape makers" by hardliners who also were/are controlling the judiciary system in order to decrease the credibility of his videotaped deposition. Ebadi and Rohami were sentenced to five years in jail and suspension of their law licenses for sending Ebrahimi's videotaped deposition to Islamic President Khatami and the head of the Islamic judiciary. The sentences were later vacated by the Islamic judiciary's supreme court, but they did not forgive Ebarahimi's outrageous videotaped confession and sentenced him to 48 months jail, including 16 months solitary. This case brought increased focus on Iran from human rights groups abroad.

Ebadi has also defended various cases of child abuse cases and a few cases dealing with bans of periodicals (including the cases of Habibollah Peyman, Abbas Maroufi, and Faraj Sarkouhi). She has also established two non-governmental organizations in Iran, the Iranian Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child and the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC).

She also drafted the original text of a law against physical abuse of children, which was passed by the Majlis in 2002.

Nobel Peace Prize

On October 10 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. ^*

The selection of Ebadi by the Norwegian Nobel committee is thought by some observers to represent an implicit criticism of American policy in the Middle East, in particular the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. George W. Bush has referred to Iran as a member of the axis of evil, and Iran has also been suggested as a possible invasion target.

At a press conference shortly after the Peace Prize announcement, Ebadi herself explicitly rejected foreign interference in the country's affairs: "The fight for human rights is conducted in Iran by the Iranian people, and we are against any foreign intervention in Iran.." ^* ^*

Subsequently, Ebadi has openly defended the Islamist Iranian regime's nuclear development programme: "Aside from being economically justified, it has become a cause of national pride for an old nation with a glorious history. No Iranian government, regardless of its ideology or democratic credentials, would dare to stop the program."….”

The decision of Nobel committee surprised observers worldwide - then Pope John Paul II was the bookies' favourite to scoop the prestigious award amid feverish speculation that he was nearing death. Some observers, mostly supporters of Pope John Paul II, viewed her selection as a calculated and political one, along the lines of the selection of Lech Wałęsa and Mikhail Gorbachev, among others, for the Peace Award. They claimed that none of Ebadi's previous activities were directly related to the stated goals for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, as originally stated by Alfred Nobel, and that according to the will of Alfred Nobel the prize should have been awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

In Iran, conservatives and fundamentalists were either silent or offensive to the selection by calling it a political act. Iranian state media waited hours to report the Nobel committee's decision -- and then only as the last item on the radio news update. President Khatami has stated that although the scientific Nobels are important, the Peace Prize "is not important and is political". Khatami’s words raised objections in the general public, resulting in Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi stating that "abusing the President's words about Mrs. Ebadi is tantamount to abusing the prize bestowed on her for political considerations". President Khatami's comment, downgrading the historic significance of the Nobel Peace Prize, has angered many Iranians some of whom view his reaction as a sign of jealousy, as he was a Nobel Prize nominee for his dialogue proposal in 2001.

After the Nobel prize

In November 2003, she declared that she would provide legal representation for the family of the murdered freelance photographer Zahra Kazemi.

As of 2004, she lives with her husband, an electrical engineer, and has two daughters who are university students.

In May 2006, she delivered the Commencement Address at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan and a speech at UC Berkeley.

Publications

Books written by Shirin Ebadi which translated into English:

History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran (New York, 2000, ISBN 0933273401)
The Rights of the Child. A Study of Legal Aspects of Children's Rights in Iran (Tehran, 1994)
Iran awakening: a memoir of revolution and hope (New York, 2006, ISBN 1400064708)

Honors and Awards

Awarded plate by Human Rights Watch, 1996
Official spectator of Human Rights Watch, 1996
Awarded Rafto Prize, Human Rights Prize in Norway, 2001
Nobel Peace Prize, 2003
International Democracy Award, 2004
‘Lawyer of the Year’ award, 2004
Doctor of Laws, Brown University, 2004
Doctor of Laws, University of British Columbia, 2004
Honorary doctorate, University of Maryland, College Park, 2004
Honorary doctorate, University of Toronto, 2004
Honorary doctorate, Simon Fraser University, 2004
Honorary doctorate, University of Akureyri, 2004
Honorary doctorate, Australian Catholic University, 2005
Honorary doctorate, University of San Francisco, 2005
Honorary doctorate, Concordia University, 2005
Honorary doctorate, The University of York, 2005
Honorary doctorate, Université Jean Moulin in Lyon, 2005
UCI Citizen Peacebuilding Award, 2005
The Golden Plate Award by the Academy of Achievement, 2005

External links

Ebadi's official website (in Persian)
Ebadi's short autobiography (in Persian)
Shirin Ebadi's biography on the Nobel Prize website
Shirin Ebadi's Nobel lecture
Quotes from Shirin Ebadi Speeches
Picture Gallery
http://www.famousmuslims.com/ebadi.htm

Skeptical

A Christian reaction

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