Shirin Ebadi

شیرین عبادی
Shirin Ebadi
Ebadi.jpg
Shirin Ebadi in 2005
Born June 21, 1947 (1947-06-21) (age 62)
Hamedan, Iran
Residence Tehran, Iran
Nationality Iranian
Occupation lawyer, founder of Children's Rights Support Association and former judge
Spouse(s) married
Children 2

Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی - Širin Ebâdi; born 21 June 1947) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Children's Rights Support Association in Iran. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee rights. She is the first Iranian to receive the prize.

Contents

Life and early career as a judge

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

Ebadi was admitted to the law department University of Tehran in 1965 and upon graduation in 1969 passed the qualification exams to become a judge. After a six-month internship period, she officially started her judging career in March 1969. 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 to preside over a legislative court.

Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, conservative clerics insisted that Islam prohibits women from becoming judges and Ebadi was demoted to a secretarial position at the branch where she had previously presided. She and other female judges protested and were assigned to the slightly higher position of "law expert." She eventually requested early retirement as the situation remained unchanged.

As her applications were repeatedly rejected, Ebadi was not able to practice as a lawyer until 1993, while she already had a law office permit. She used this free time to write 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 Eskandari, 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, whose head, Saeed Emami, committed suicide in jail before being brought to court.

Ebadi also represented the family of Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad, the only officially accepted case of murder in the Iranian student protests of July 1999. In the process, in 2000 Ebadi was accused of distributing the videotaped confession of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of one of the main "plainclothes" paramilitary forces, Ansar-e Hezbollah. Ebrahimi accused his former associates of attacking members of President Khatami's cabinet on orders of high-level conservative authorities. Ebadi 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 videotaped confession and sentenced him to 48 months jail, including 16 months in solitary confinement. 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 Marufi, and Faraj Sarkouhi). She has also established two non-governmental organizations in Iran, the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child (SPRC) 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 Iranian parliament in 2002.

Political views

In her book Iran Awakening, Ebadi explains her political/religious views on Islam, democracy and gender equality

In the last 23 years, from the day I was stripped of my judgeship to the years of doing battle in the revolutionary courts of Tehran, I had repeated one refrain: an interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered. That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work." [1]

At the same time, Ebadi expresses a nationalist love of Iran and a less than enchanted view of the Western world. She opposed the pro-Western Shah, initially supported the Islamic Revolution, remembers the CIA's 1953 overthrow of prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq with rage, and feels anger toward family and friends who have emigrated to Western countries with better job opportunities. "I refuse to write letters to those who had left ... When someone leaves Iran, it's as though that person has died to me." [2]

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." [3] [4]

Subsequently, Ebadi has openly defended the Islamic 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.[5]

Nobel Peace Prize

On October 10 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. [6] The selection committee praised her as a "courageous person" who "has never heeded the threat to her own safety".[7] Now she travels abroad lecturing in the West. She is against a policy of forced regime change. Her husband was an advisor to President Khatami.

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.

The decision of Nobel committee surprised some 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".

She presented a book entitled, Democracy, human rights, and Islam in modern Iran: Psychological, social and cultural perspectives (2003,Bergen: Fagbokforlaget), to the Nobel Committee. The volume documents the historical and cultural basis of democracy and human rights from Cyrus and Darius, 2,500 years ago to Muhammad Mossadeq, the popular Prime Minister of modern Iran who nationalized the oil industry.

In Iran, officials of the Islamic Republic were either silent or critical of the selection of Ebadi, calling it a political act and were very angry when Ebadi did not cover her hair at the Nobel award ceremony.[8] IRNA reported it in few lines that the evening newspapers and the Iranian state media waited hours to report the Nobel committee's decision -- and then only as the last item on the radio news update.[9] Reformist officials are said to have "generally welcomed the award", but "come under attack for doing so."[10] Reformist president Mohammad Khatami did not officially congratulate Mrs. Ebadi and stated that although the scientific Nobels are important, the Peace Prize is "not very important" and was awarded to Ebadi on the basis of "totally political criteria".[11] Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the only official to initially congratulate Ebadi, defended the president saying "abusing the President's words about Mrs. Ebadi is tantamount to abusing the prize bestowed on her for political considerations".

After the Nobel prize

Following recieving the nobel prize Ebadi has lectured, taught and recieved awards in different countries, issued statements and defended people accused of political crimes in Iran. She has traveled to and spoken to audiences in India, the United States, and other countries; released her autobiography in an English translation; participated in the Nobel Women's Initiative along with five other Nobel Laureates. She has also told Reuters news agency that Iran's human rights record had regressed in the past two years. [12] and agreed to defend Baha’is arrested in Iran in May 2008.

In April 2008 Ebadi released a statement saying: "Threats against my life and security and those of my family, which began some time ago, have intensified," and that the threats warned her against making speeches abroad, and defending Iran's minority Baha'i community. [13] In August 2008, the IRNA news agency published an article attacking Ebadi's links to the Bahá'í Faith and accused her of seeking support from the West. It also criticized Ebadi for defending homosexuals, appearing without the Islamic headscarf abroad, questioning Islamic punishments, and "defending CIA agents."[14] It accused her daughter, Nargess Tavassolian, of conversion to Bahá'ísm, a capital offense in the Islamic Republic. Her daughter believes "the government wanted to scare my mother with this scenario." Ebadi believes the attacks are in retaliation for her agreeing to defend the families of the seven Baha’is arrested in May.[15]

Timeline

Publications

Books written by Shirin Ebadi which have been translated into English:

Lawsuits

Law suit against the United States

In 2004 Shirin Ebadi filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Treasury because of restrictions she faced over publishing her memoir in the United States. American trade laws include prohibitions on writers from embargoed countries. The law also banned American literary agent Wendy Strothman from working with Ebadi. Azar Nafisi wrote a letter in support of Shirin Ebadi. Nafisi said that the law infringes on the first amendment. [21] After a long legal battle, Shirin Ebadi won and was able to publish her memoir in the United States.[22]

Law suit over non-publication

According to the Associated Press, on August 27, 2007, Shirin Ebadi was sued by a Canadian author and political analyst, Shahir Shahidsaless—who writes and publishes in Persian—in U.S. District Court in Manhattan saying she reneged on getting a publisher for a book she had requested him to write under her supervision, titled "A Useful Enemy". The initial suit was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction of the court, and not the substance of the case, which was never tried. The case is currently being considered at the New York State Court.

Honors and Awards

References

  1. ↑ Ebadi, Shirin, Iran Awakening : A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni, Random House, 2006, p.204
  2. ↑ Ebadi, Iran Awakening, (2006), p.81
  3. ↑ Washington Post: Nobels With a Message, last retrieved on 2007-10-12
  4. ↑ Working for Change: Eyes off the prize, last retrieved on 2007-10-12
  5. ↑ The Sydney Morning Herald: Sunnis fear US missteps will bolster Tehran's influence, last retrieved on 2007-10-12
  6. ↑ Nobelprize.org: The Nobel Peace Prize 2003, last retrieved on 2007-10-12
  7. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Nobel winner's plea to Iran, last retrieved on 2007-10-12
  8. ↑ IRANIAN MUSLIM WOMEN ARE FREE TO WEAR OR NOT THE HEJAB: MOHAMMAD KHATAMI By Safa Haeri
  9. ↑ Iran Press Service, IRANIANS CELEBRATED WITH JOY EBADI’S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE By Safa Haeri
  10. ↑ Khatami advice to Nobel laureate, October 14, 2003
  11. ↑ Khatami advice to Nobel laureate, October 14, 2003
  12. ↑ Iran to probe threats against Nobel laureate Ebadi
  13. ↑ BBC NEWS. Top Iranian dissident threatened
  14. ↑ Iranian press targets Nobel Prize winner Ebadi
  15. ↑ By Attacking Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, The Islamic Republic Revives Stalinian Methods By Safa Haeri
  16. ↑ [1] Nobel Women's Initiative
  17. ↑ Iran to probe threats against Nobel laureate Ebadi
  18. ↑ BBC NEWS. Top Iranian dissident threatened
  19. ↑ http://www.bahairights.org/2008/08/07/in-court-i-will-defend-the-bahais/
  20. ↑ http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/16/iran.bahais/
  21. ↑ Iranian Nobel Winner Suing U.S. over Memoir : NPR
  22. ↑ Ebadi Wins Round with U.S. over Memoirs : NPR
  23. ↑ Williams College: Honorary Degree Citation 2004, last retrieved on 2008-05-05
  24. ↑ A Different View, Issue 19, January 2008.
  • Kim, U., Aasen, H. S., & Ebadi, S. (2003). Democracy, human rights, and Islam in modern Iran: Psychological, social and cultural perspectives. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

See also

External links

Nobel Peace Prize laureates

Kofi Annan / United Nations (2001) · Jimmy Carter (2002) · Shirin Ebadi (2003) · Wangari Maathai (2004) · International Atomic Energy Agency / Mohamed ElBaradei (2005) · Grameen Bank / Muhammad Yunus (2006) · Al Gore / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) · Martti Ahtisaari (2008)
Complete roster: 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present
Persondata
NAME Ebadi, Shirin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES شیرین عبادی (Persian)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Iranian lawyer and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 21 June 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamadan, Iran
DATE OF DEATH living
PLACE OF DEATH