Oslo – Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, currently imprisoned in her country, yesterday criticized Iran’s “tyrannical and misogynistic religious regime” in a speech read by her children, who accepted the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf in Oslo.
Mohammadi, who protests against mandatory veiling for women and the death penalty in Iran, has been arrested and sentenced numerous times in recent decades.
Since 2021, she has been imprisoned in Evin prison in Tehran, so she could not receive the award in person.
His 17-year-old twins, Ali and Kiana, dressed in black, accepted the award during the ceremony at City Hall in Norway’s capital and read a speech he managed to broadcast from prison.
Terrorism
“I am a woman from the Middle East, from a region that, although it is heir to a rich civilization, is currently trapped in war and prey to the flames of terrorism and extremism,” she said in her message, written “behind the high, cold walls of a prison.”
“I am an Iranian woman who feels proud and honored to contribute to this civilization, which today is a victim of oppression by a tyrannical and misogynistic religious regime,” she added, urging the international community to do more for human rights.
In his absence, a seat remained symbolically empty, crowned by his portrait.
The 51-year-old activist was named the Nobel Peace Prize winner in October “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”
She is one of the main figures of the “Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement in Iran, sparked by the death in police custody last year of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman detained for allegedly violating the strict code of dress that governs the country for women.
“The mandatory hijab imposed by the Government is neither a religious obligation nor
a cultural model, but a means of controlling and subjugating the entire society,” Mohammadi reiterated on Sunday, calling it a “governmental shame.”
In the speech read before the Norwegian royal family, the activist described an Islamic Republic “essentially alien to its ‘people’”, denouncing repression, the subjugation of the judicial system, propaganda and censorship, nepotism and corruption.
AFP Agency
Source: Ambito
