Nobel Prize delivered to prison

In 2023, Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi received the Nobel Peace Prize. The award will be given for her “struggle against the oppression of women” and for “promoting human rights and freedom for all.” True, Ms. Mohammadi is unlikely to be able to personally receive the award: she is serving a prison sentence in her homeland on a number of charges, including disseminating “propaganda against the state.” The Nobel committee’s decision was made public at a time when Iran is once again talking loudly about women’s rights and the chances of a repeat of last year’s protests.

Narges Mohammadi received award for “the fight against the oppression of Iranian women” and efforts to “promote human rights and freedom for all.” At the same time, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, speaking to reporters, said: in the person of the laureate, the award goes to all Iranian freedom fighters – participants in last year’s demonstrations of thousands of people against the policy of discrimination and oppression of women.

Let us remind youthat those protests began after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was detained by the morality police for wearing the hijab incorrectly. At the police station, the girl became ill and was sent to the hospital, where she died a few days later. According to relatives, Mahsa Amini’s death was the result of beatings; Iranian authorities deny this.

The protests sparked by this tragic incident, which, according to human rights activists, killed at least 530 protesters and detained about 20 thousand people, began under the slogan “Woman – life – freedom.”

As the Nobel Committee noted, these three words best characterize the work of Narges Mohammadi: “She fights for women’s rights against systematic discrimination and oppression. She supports women’s fight for the right to live full and dignified lives… She fights for freedom of expression and the right to independence, and against rules that require women to remain out of sight and cover their bodies.” At the same time, the laureate’s human rights activities are not limited to any narrow topic: at various times, Mrs. Mohammadi, for example, actively sought the abolition of the death penalty and the ban on torture of prisoners; she also dealt with other issues.

During last year’s protests, Narges Mohammadi was in prison. But even from there she supported the demonstrators, in particular, organized solidarity actions among cellmates. “In response, prison authorities introduced even stricter conditions of detention. Ms Mohammadi was prohibited from receiving calls or visitors. However, she managed to get the article out, which was then published by The New York Times on the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s murder. The message was: “The more we are locked up, the stronger we become,” the Nobel committee noted on Friday.

Narges Mohammadi remains in prison to this day. Berit Reiss-Andersen expressed hope that Iranian authorities will allow the human rights activist to attend the award ceremony in December. But de facto there is no point in hoping for this. The leadership of the Islamic Republic has a special attitude towards Ms. Mohammadi: in total, the human rights activist was arrested 13 times, convicted five times and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. The latest verdict to date was in May 2021: a Tehran court sentenced the activist to two and a half years in prison, 80 lashes and two separate fines on charges including “disseminating propaganda against the state.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that “the decision of the Nobel Committee is a political action that is in line with the interventionist and anti-Iranian policies of some European governments, and also demonstrates a disappointing deviation from its original goals.”

Meanwhile, the laureate herself, in a written commentary published The New York Times, vowed to never stop “fighting for democracy, freedom and equality.” “Definitely, the Nobel Peace Prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful and enthusiastic along this path,” she wrote. And she stated: “Victory is near.”

Mrs. Mohammadi and all her like-minded people will indeed still need perseverance and determination. Coincidentally, the decision of the Nobel Committee was announced at a time when the possibility of a new wave of protests in Iran was being actively discussed. Last week, a story occurred in the Islamic republic that was almost identical to what happened a year ago with Mahsa Amini. On October 1, 16-year-old Armita Gyaravand fell into a coma after she was detained in the Tehran metro for not wearing a hijab. According to human rights activists, brute force was used against the girl. At the same time, official Iranian media, citing the girl’s parents, write that Armita Gyaravand’s blood pressure dropped, she lost her balance and hit her head. Human rights activists insist that the girl’s parents made such a statement under pressure from the authorities.

“Armita Gyaravand’s story has a lot of flashback vibes. And it is clear that the Iranian public is outraged and will never believe the authorities’ version of fainting due to low blood pressure,” Nikita Smagin, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council and Iranist, told Kommersant.

However, he suggested that “this alone will not be enough for a new social explosion.” According to the expert, the protest history of Iran shows that an unexpected event always acts as a trigger: “Everyone is accustomed to the detention of women by the morality police, but when suddenly a girl is beaten and she dies, this is a kind of new milestone, which a year ago crossed the country’s population. Today there is nothing new about this, so there is discontent, but millions are unlikely to ignite because of this.” At the same time, Nikita Smagin did not rule out that sooner or later thousands of Iranians will take to the streets again: there are enough reasons for this, and the occasion could arise at any moment.

Pavel Tarasenko, Marianna Belenkaya