“Victory is not easy but it is certain”: Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, secretly smuggled a message of thanks from her cell in Tehran.
In this message read in French by her daughter, Kiana Rahmani, and posted on the official Nobel website, the 51-year-old activist and journalist expresses her “most sincere gratitude” to the Norwegian Nobel committee, once again criticizing the obligation made for women in Iran to wear the veil and strongly attacks the Iranian authorities.
“The compulsory hijab is the main source of domination and repression in society, aimed at maintaining and perpetuating an authoritarian religious government,” she declares through the voice of her 17-year-old daughter, a refugee in France with the rest of his family. A government that has institutionalized deprivation and poverty in society for forty-five years. A government built on lies, deception, trickery and intimidation. A government that has jeopardized peace and stability in the region and the world through its bellicose policies. »
Arrested 13 times, sentenced five times to a total of thirty-one years in prison and 154 lashes, and incarcerated again since 2021, Narges Mohammadi is one of the main faces of the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in Iran. The movement, which saw women remove the veil, cut their hair and demonstrate in the streets, was sparked by the death last year of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, after her arrest in Tehran for non-compliance with strict Islamic dress code. The movement was severely repressed.
“Victory is not easy, but it is certain.”
On Saturday, a 16-year-old Iranian high school student, Armita Geravand, died after a month in a coma, with several NGOs claiming she was attacked in the subway by moral police charged with enforcing the requirement for women to wear the sailing in public. The authorities deny it and speak of uneasiness. “We, the Iranian people, aspire to democracy, freedom, human rights and equality. The Islamic Republic is the main obstacle to realizing this national demand,” says Narges Mohammadi. “We are striving through solidarity and the strength of a non-violent and unstoppable process to override this religious authoritarian government and to revive Iran’s honor and human dignity,” she emphasizes from the prison. ‘Evin. And to conclude: “Victory is not easy, but it is certain. »
The circumstances in which the activist succeeded in getting her message across are not known. The Nobel Committee awarded her the prestigious Peace Prize on October 6, praising “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all.”
