Tributes are pouring in after the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi, Iranian activist for women’s rights, a year after the death of Masha Amini. The 51-year-old activist and journalist, currently imprisoned, is rewarded “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all,” declared the president of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
When his distinction was announced, the UN requested his release. This award “is an important reminder that the rights of women and girls face serious setbacks, including through the persecution of women’s rights defenders, in Iran and elsewhere,” said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. This Nobel Prize represents a “tribute to all these women who fight for their rights at the risk of their freedom, their health and even their lives”, according to him.
“I am very proud of my mother”
“France welcomes this very strong choice for a freedom fighter,” welcomed Emmanuel Macron at the end of an informal European summit in Granada in the south of Spain. Noting the “immense courage” of Narges Mohammadi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anne-Claire Legendre urged “his immediate release” and recalled that “France and Germany had saluted his commitment by awarding him 2021 the Franco-German Human Rights Prize”.
The United States also highlighted the “courage” of the activist. “Narges Mohammadi is a hero to so many people in Iran and around the world. Today the whole world recognizes with one voice his courage,” declared the American envoy for Iran Abram Paley in a message on X (formerly Twitter). “I am very, very proud of her, very happy,” declared the Iranian’s son Ali, 17, adding that this prize constituted “a reward for the Iranian people” during a press conference in Paris. where he lives with his father and twin sister.