“Victory is certain”: Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, secretly sent a message from her cell in which she strongly attacks the power 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 imposed on women in Iran to wear the veil and castigates 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 from his family.
“A government that has institutionalized deprivation and poverty in society for 45 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,” she said.
Arrested 13 times, sentenced five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes, and incarcerated again since 2021, Narges Mohammadi is one of the main faces of the “Woman, 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 protest was severely repressed.
“The strength of this movement lies in the action of Iranian women. We know what we want, more and better than what we don’t want,” says Narges Mohammadi.
Absent at the Nobel ceremony
On Saturday, another young Iranian woman, Armita Garawand, a 17-year-old high school student, died in controversial circumstances after a month in a coma.
Several NGOs claim that she was attacked in the metro by the moral police responsible for enforcing the obligation for women to wear the veil in public, while the authorities deny this and cite discomfort.
“We, the Iranian people, aspire to democracy, freedom, human rights and equality. The Islamic Republic is the main obstacle to the realization of this national demand,” Narges Mohammadi also declares.
“We are striving through solidarity and the strength of a non-violent and unstoppable process to override this religious authoritarian government and revive Iran’s honor and human dignity,” she underlines.
And to conclude: “victory is not easy but it is certain”.
It is unclear how the activist got her message across from Evin prison where she is detained.
The Nobel committee awarded her the 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”.
Kiana Rahmani, who read the ten-minute message sent by Narges Mohammadi, and her twin brother Ali will represent their imprisoned mother at the prize ceremony on December 10 in Oslo, the Nobel Institute announced on Wednesday.
After the German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935, the Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010 and the Belarusian Ales Bialiatski in 2022, this is the fifth time in Nobel history that the prestigious award is attributed to an imprisoned personality.