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SPECIAL REPORTS: SHIRIN EBADI RECEIVES THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

 
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 11, 2003 12:30 am    Post subject: SPECIAL REPORTS: SHIRIN EBADI RECEIVES THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE Reply with quote

Summary of Iran Stories in Today's Broadcasts
Friday, October 10, 2003
SPECIAL REPORTS: HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER SHIRIN EBADI RECEIVES THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

•The Nobel peace prize gives me the conviction the path I chose for defending human rights was a right one, lawyer and human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi tells Radio Farda in an interview in Paris after her press conference. This prize is not mine alone, it belongs to all the individuals in Iran and outside Iran who struggle for freedom, human rights and peace. She says it is her duty to continue to work on her cases on her return to Iran, hoping that the prize will have a positive impact on her work. “I have to do all I can to see that justice is implemented,” she says. (Mir-Ali Hosseini, Paris)

•In her press conference in Paris, just hours after the surprise announcement by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Ms. Shirin Ebadi called for the immediate release of political prisoners in Iran. “Today many people who fight for liberty and democracy (in Iran) are in prison. I hope for their release as soon as possible,” she said, appearing without the headscarf women are required to wear under Iran's Islamic law. In her press conference, which was carried live by Radio Farda, she also spoke out against rights abuses around the world, taking aim at the US occupation of Iraq and describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an unequal war of “stones against weapons.” Ebadi said in their fight for human rights and freedoms, the Iranians do not need foreign intervention. “The fight for human rights is conducted in Iran by the Iranian people and we are against any foreign intervention in Iran,” she said. Ms. Ebadi maintained that in her view, Islam and human rights can co-exist, and blamed the authorities, not the religion, for human rights abuses in Muslim countries. “For 20 years I have been putting out the message that it is possible to be Muslim and have laws that respect human rights” she said. "What is worse is that people who have power in Muslim countries violate (human rights) in the name of Islam,” she said. (Siavash Ardalan)

•Norway's television network NRCO predicts that within a few hours, Shirin Ebadi will receive the 2003 Nobel peace prize. (Baktash Khamsehpour)

•The predictions of the Norwegian TV on the winner of the Nobel peace prize usually comes true, Stockholm-based journalist Elaheh Ravanshad tells Radio Farda 90 minutes before the official announcement. The peace prize is the only Nobel prize that is given by a committee in Norway, in accordance with Nobel's will. (Baktash Khamsehpour)

•Shirin Ebadi, 56, human rights advocate and tireless defender of the rights of children and women in Iran, became the first Iranian, second Muslim and eleventh woman to receive the Nobel peace prize “for her efforts for democracy and human rights.” “She has stood up as a sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threats to her own safety, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced. “In an era of violence, she has consistently supported non-violence. It is fundamental to her view that the supreme political power in a community must be built on democratic elections. She favors enlightenment and dialogue as the best path to changing attitudes and resolving conflict, the Committee added in its announcement. “We hope that the people of Iran will feel joyous that for the first time in history one of their citizens has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and we hope the Prize will be an inspiration for all those who struggle for human rights and democracy in her country, in the Moslem world, and in all countries where the fight for human rights needs inspiration and support,” it added. (Siavash Ardalan with Elaheh Ravanshad in Stockholm)

•Pope John Paul II will send a message of congratulations to Shirin Ebadi, a Vatican source said. Former Polish president and Nobel peace laureate Lech Walesa said on Friday it was a “big mistake” to award the 2003 prize to an Iranian human rights activist and snub his compatriot Pope John Paul II. (Fariba Mavedat)

•In Washington, spokesmen at the White House and the State Department applauded the recognition for Ms. Ebadi, with Scott McClellan, President Bush's spokesman, saying, "She has worked tirelessly, and suffered at the hands of the clerical regime, including imprisonment for promoting democracy and human rights in her country, and we congratulate her on this well-deserved honor." (Maryam Ahmadi)

•Ebadi defended many students who were arrested after last June's pro-democracy demonstrations. She also spent time in prison, along with fellow lawyer Mohsen Rohami. The Iranian authorities will try to ignore the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Shirin Ebadi, Mohsen Rohami, a colleague of Ms. Ebadi, tells Radio Farda. Rohami and Ebadi represented Amir-Farshad Ebrahimi, a former member of the secretive plainclothes security force Ansar-e Hezbollah, who accused the organization of receiving orders from high-level conservative authorities to attack members of President Khatami's cabinet. 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, but the sentences were later vacated by the Islamic judiciary's supreme court. The visibility that the Nobel peace prize provides for Ms. Ebadi will increase her stature and security, and she would be able to use her new position for bolder moves. However, he adds that the prize would not compel the conservative Guardians Council to approve the anti-child abuse bill that Ms. Ebadi championed. (Siavash Ardalan)

•The state radio-TV monopoly has not yet reported on Ms. Ebadi's Nobel peace prize, reports Tehran-based journalist Arash Qavidel more than three hours after the announcement. (Jamshid Zand)

•It is so beautiful that we Iranians won the most beautiful Nobel prize, which is the peace prize, and as Ms. Ebadi's friend, I am so happy, Tehran-based publisher and human rights advocate Shahla Lahiji tells Radio Farda.

•It is as if all of us have won this award, says Shiva Dowlatabadi, head of the non-governmental organization society for defense of children's rights, founded by Shirin Ebadi. She tells Radio Farda that Ebadi has worked for more than two decades to promote the rights of children, justice and peace. (Mahmonir Rahimi)

•She truly deserves this prize, because she worked hard and endured much suffering in her struggle on behalf of children and women, says Tehran-based lawyer Mohammad Seifzadeh, a co-founder, with Shirin Ebadi, of the non-governmental organization the society of human rights defenders. (Mahmonir Rahimi)

•The Islamic government's official media have not yet reported the awarding of the Nobel peace prize to Ms. Shirin Ebadi, but journalists and the Internet users in Iran received the news immediately after the announcement in Oslo. “The news exploded among the journalists since 11 AM Tehran time,” political editor of the reformist daily Etemad Rouzbeh Ebrahimi tells Radio Farda. People were shocked, and excited, he adds, and they congratulated each other in a flurry of cell phone calls. (Mahmonir Rahimi)

•The official news agency IRNA reported Ebadi's Nobel prize in a short and terse item, hours after the Oslo announcement. The item was carried without comment on the main channels of the state Radio-TV monopoly. The other state-run news agency, ISNA, reported it by translating an AP copy. Cabinet spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said the government was pleased that Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel peace prize, but retracted his statement shortly after it appeared on IRNA's telex, saying that he was only expressing his personal opinion. Vice president for legal and legislative affairs Mohammad-Ali Abtahi said he was happy that an Iranian woman won the prize. (Siavash Ardalan, Fariba Mavedat)

•I am proud that the world showed that it appreciates the hard work of Shirin Ebadi, who rose to defend the rights of women and children, Parastu Forouhar, daughter of Parvaneh and Darioush Forouhar, victims of the 1998 serial murders of dissidents by the Islamic regime's intelligence ministry agents, tells Radio Farda. Ms. Ebadi represented Ms. Forouhar and the families of other political murders' victims. (Fereydoun Zarnegar)

•This was an award for all of us who work on human rights in Iran, New York-based Human Rights Watch's Iran specialist Elaheh Sharifpour Hicks tells Radio Farda. Ms. Hicks was with Ms. Ebadi in Tehran days before the judiciary arrested Ms. Ebadi for her work on Amir-Farshad Ebrahimi's deposition. She is a pioneer and we are all proud for her, Ms. Hicks adds, after naming some of the high profile defendants represented by Ms. Ebadi, including writer and magazine editoer Abbas Maroufi, who received jail sentence and lashes for a cartoon in his magazine. (Siavash Ardalan)

•After more than 50 lawyers turned him down, it was only Shirin Ebadi and her colleague the late lawyer and poet Hamid Mosaddegh who agreed to defend him, exiled writer and magazine editor Abbas Maroufi tells Radio Farda. “I could not be happier, even if I had been given the prize,” he adds. Mr. Maroufi was convicted to jail and lashes in 1996, a year before President Khatami came to power. Maroufi's crime was the publication of a cartoon of a soccer player that conservative clerics said resembled the founder of the Islamic regime Ayatollah Khomeini. (Mahmonir Rahimi)

•There was no room for a press conference in the cramped offices of the international federation of the societies for defense of human rights in Paris, so the press conference was held in the balcony. Head of the society Pascal Boritas said Ms. Ebadi's award can help improve human rights conditions in Iran. (Mir-Ali Hosseini, Paris)

•Scores of reporters, who had gathered in the Vatican's main square to cover the Pope's reaction, left the square in anger after they heard that the Norwegian Nobel Committee had passed over the Pope, in order to give the 2003 peace prize to Ms. Ebadi. (Ahmad Ra'fat, Rome)

•Radio Farda airs portions of past interviews with Shirin Ebadi on issues such as anti-child abuse bill, the inequitable divorce and inheritance laws, and the Islamic regime's authorities' discrimination between “insider” and “outsider” citizens. (Jamshid Zand)

•Radio Farda airs comments by callers from Iran and around the world expressing their joy and pride.

•Despite what the conservatives may be thinking, the Islamic Iran must be proud of Shirin Ebadi, Tehran University political relations professor Sadeq Zibakalam tells Radio Farda. Unlike the conservatives who think the Ebadi's Nobel Prize was an attack on the Islamic Republic, I believe the Prize is an honor for Iran and the Islamic Republic, he adds. It was within this Islamic system that Ms. Ebadi did her work, and proved that her work could be done, he says. (Siavash Ardalan)

•She is the symbol of resistance, courage, wisdom, reason and freedom-seeking of the Iranian woman, novelist and UCLA professor Nayereh Touhidi tells Radio Farda. (Siavash Ardalan)

•She took up the hard work of defending those whom no other lawyer would have defended, says former head of the Tehran University's Faculty of Law and Political Science and former education minister, Washington-based anti-regime activist Manoucher Ganji, who was Ms. Ebadi's law professor in 1975. She always asked the right questions, and was daring, and loved freedom and equality, he tells Radio Farda. This is a great day for all Iranians, he adds. (Maryam Ahmadi)

•German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Germany's foreign minister Joschka Fischer congratulated Ebadi in separate telegrams. (Amir Armin)

•Highest ranking dissident cleric and former designated heir to Ayatollah Khameini's position as the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri hoped that Ms. Ebadi's Nobel prize would encourage other lawyers, as well as Iranians to struggle for their lost rights under the Islamic regime, Ayatollah's son Ahmad Montazeri tells Radio Farda. (Amir-Mosaddegh Katouzian)

•This prize is very positive, not only for the women's rights in Iran, but for the determining the destiny of Iran, in deciding the future of Iran, exiled women's rights advocate and Ms. Ebadi's colleague and jail mate Mehrangiz Kar tells Radio Farda. In the past 24 years, Iranian men and women suffered great difficulties in their struggle for basic human rights, and many heroes rose from their ranks, and Ms. Ebadi is one of those heroes, she adds. (Leyli Sadr)

•“Rosalynn and I are pleased to congratulate Shirin Ebadi on receiving the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize,” the 2002 Nobel peace laureate, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said in a statement. “Her personal courage in defense of rights for women and children is an inspiration to people in Iran and around the world. She proves that one person, standing on principle, can make a positive difference in the lives of many,” he added. (Ali Sajjadi)

•The award underscores “the importance of expanding human rights throughout the world,” the 2001 Nobel Prize laureate UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement. (Ali Sajjadi)

•Writer Mohammad-Reza Moini, Denmark-based writer Nahid Riazi, member of the Iranian writers union Kazem Kardovani, head of the Islamic studies division of the Washington Strategic and International Studies Institute Shirin Hunter, former women's affairs minister Mahnaz Afkhami, fellow lawyer and founder of the society of human rights defenders Mohammad-Ali Dadkhah, lawyer and fellow lawyer Farzaneh Aman, wife of jailed nationalist-religious activist Taqi Rahmani, Narges Mohammadi, University of Virginia professor and author of several books on the conditions of Iranian women after the Islamic revolution Farzaneh Milani, head of the Afghan women's education center Sakineh Yaqubi, Tornoto-based social and political studies scholar Victoria Tahmasbi, Jordanian women's rights activist Asma Khadar, tell Radio Farda in separate interviews, of their joy and appreciation.

.

Behnam Nateghi
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