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Six hundred and fifty kilometers from the cradle of civilization,

a little girl was born in the ancient city of Hamadan.

She was the second oldest of four children

and her father and mother loved her dearly.

The next Nobel Peace Laureate

who I get the honor of introducing to you,

and she is such an incredibly powerful and brave woman,

she actually has been imprisoned for her work

for the rights of women and children,

and for human rights in her country.

And before she came here

her government was threatening to imprison her again,

and the Nobel Laureates on this stage

and human rights organizations around the world said “no”

This woman must be free and be able to continue her work,

because she is making an incredible difference

and the world supports her.

And, so please join us in a heartfelt welcome,

we are so glad

that she is here with us and we hope that she remains free

to do her work for the rest of her life – Shirin Ebadi of Iran.

When people are oppressed all their lives and they are

deprived of their most basic human rights, they may lose control,

they may set fire to the world,

causing misery to themselves and others.

When 80% of the wealth of the world

belongs to 1% of the population of the world,

how can we expect peace?

Let's bring an end to injustice, especially for women.

Let's decrease the gap between the haves and have nots

at every single level.

And then we will see that we can start walking towards peace.

What is the position of women in Iran right now?

Iranian women are very dissatisfied with these laws.

As a result, the Iranian feminist movement

is deep and spreading rapidly.

And certainly Iranian women will win this struggle.

Shirin Ebadi has been found guilty.

She is sentenced to five years in prison.

Long live Ebadi! Long live Ebadi! Long live Ebadi!

She is questioning the laws of our country.

Truly, the law has to be changed!

She is questioning Islamic punishments.

I said no, that I would not become silent under any condition.

With all the atrocities committed in Iran, I cannot be silent.

Then, the death threats against Shirin and her daughters

started to increase, to intensify.

The nation of Iran made a terrible mistake.

As countries around the world continue

to take away the rights of women…

sometimes slowly…

sometimes in the blink of an eye…

Shirin Ebadi,

the first Muslim woman to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize,

continues to fight for justice.

This is a story about how quickly things can change;

how fragile democracy and human freedom can be.

This is a cautionary tale

about one woman’s struggle

to restore the rights that women have lost. .

the women of Iran, the women of the world.

Shirin Ebadi: Until We Are Free

From childhood, I fell in love with a phenomenon

I later learned was justice.

When I was a child and saw other children fighting

I would go aid the underdog,

without even knowing what they were fighting about,

which would also cause me to get in the middle and get beaten.

And when I was a child,

I was fearless.

My mother used to say I “climbed the sheer wall"

I fell and cracked my head open three times.

My mother used to say,

she never remembered a time when

some part of my body was not injured

as I was very much a daredevil.

There were three girls and one boy in our family.

But, my brother and sisters, we were treated the same.

He did not enjoy more freedom than we did.

In our family my father was a true feminist.

Of course my mother was one too.

But what counts is my father

who really had a terrific way of thinking.

But this stubborn child

also had her wishes and dreams.

When I was a child I wanted to become a math teacher

and that was the most important thing in the world to me.

I was born and raised in a modern Muslim family.

My parents said their prayers and practiced their religion.

But it is interesting to know that

I was not educated in a Muslim School.

I attended a Zoroastrian School.

The school was a good school and close to our house.

My father said we are Shia Muslims,

and they are Zoroastrians. We are good people, and so are they.

Actually, I have always seen all religions as equal and good.

This is how I've been raised.

What I remember from my childhood

is my grandmother’s house.

Playing hide and seek in her fruit orchards

and returning home at night

with sticky fingers and berry stained clothes.

I remember the smell of night blooming jasmine

and the taste of apricots and cherries,

pomegranates and plums.

And it was in the garden,

my grandmother's garden,

that's where the family would gather

to laugh, to play, to eat, to sing.

We lived in Tehran,

but every chance we had, we went back home to Hamadan.

My childhood memories of my grandmother's garden

are like a dream. But I remember one night.

My parents sat huddled around the radio

closer than usual with rapt expressions,

the copper bowl of pistachios before them untouched.

I remember the faces of my parents, my grandmother's harsh tone,

and even the wooden gleam of the radio.

It's fixed in my mind. The looks on their faces,

the day Mosaddegh, Iran's first democratically elected leader,

was tossed out of the government in a coup organized by the CIA.

My father, a longtime supporter of the ousted Prime Minister,

was forced out of his job.

He was never appointed at the senior level again.

He never explained to us what happened,

why suddenly he was home all day, pensive and quiet.

After that date, my father refused to discuss politics at home.

As a result, my growing up was singular in another way.

I was oblivious to politics, except for that one fateful night in 1953.

As one grows up, one’s own dreams also become larger.

But these great dreams

had different interpretations

in different times of my life.

My father said that one destroyed

career was enough for any family.

He insisted that we should attend excellent universities

and serve the country as technocrats,

and so I decided to go to law school.

It is important here to understand my country's history,

and how we came to the place we were in 1965.

Shirin Ebadi’s parents were born a century ago

in a country that was known as Persia.

For more than 2,000 years,

Persia was a global hub of culture,

science, art, and technology.

Persians led the field of research in algebra and astronomy.

They were inventors and innovators.

They wrote the first book of modern medicine.

For centuries, the latest in human thought

and the finest in worldly goods

traveled across this great realm.

Slavery was forbidden

and servants were required by law to be paid.

And women had a more equal role

than in most of the rest of the world.

Women owned land, they owned businesses,

they held professional positions.

And, even the advent of the new religion of Islam,

did little to change this underlying fundamental culture

of Persia.

Since I was a child, I had big dreams.

I always believed that I would achieve my dreams.

I am a Persian.

A descendant of Cyrus the Great.

The same Emperor, who 2,500 years ago stated that

he would not rule over people who did not want him to.

Cyrus never made anyone change their religion.

More than 2,000 years ago, Cyrus

the Great incorporated Babylon into his realm

and an event unique in ancient history occurred.

Cyrus the Great freed all of those who had been captured as

slaves, including those who were Jews.

The Bible gives a detailed account

of his decree to end their long and painful Babylonian captivity,

freeing them from slavery.

Freedom of religion existed in all

of the Persian Empire under his government.

People enjoyed all kinds of freedom.

The Human Rights Charter of Cyrus is the most important

example of a Human Rights document in ancient history.

In this way,

Cyrus the Great built a multiethnic empire

based on the principles contained in his charter.

It became the largest empire that the ancient world had ever seen.

People were allowed to keep their own religion and culture

as long as they paid their yearly taxes

to the king.

Let me tell you an old story:

God was in the seventh heaven

and truth was a mirror in God’s hand.

From the seventh heaven, the mirror fell down to earth,

and broke into thousands of pieces,

and each piece went into a house and to a different person.

Thus truth is with everyone and everyone sees a part of truth.

Cyrus the Great

and other Persian Kings were disciples of the ancient religion

Zoroastrianism.

They believed in one God,

in good and evil, in heaven and hell,

and in a final judgment day.

Zoroastrianism strongly influenced the way

the Persians governed their empire.

Persian King Darius

the Great was inspired to create a grand city

which embodied this cosmic balance . Persepolis.

It was one of the greatest architectural

achievements of the ancient world.

From its gate of all the nations,

to its Royal Terrace and Hall of Court,

it was quite literally the richest city under the sun.

When Alexander the Great burst forth

from Macedonia to conquer the known world,

he conquered all of Persia

in just 12 short years,

and he burned Persepolis to the ground.

But he died when he was only 32 years old,

and his generals then simply adopted the Persian system

of governing the Empire, more or less.

Yet years of infighting

between these generals and their successors

caused the empire to decline.

Very soon, the next great Persian Empire, the Parthians,

rose up and began to reclaim all of Persia's old territories.

Early Persian culture

reached its peak under the Sassanid empire,

which lasted for 400 years.

Persian rugs, roses, and perfume

were the finest in the world.

The first ceramics, the first orchestra,

the game of polo, all came from Persia.

And Persians continued to build the walled gardens

that were invented by Cyrus the Great himself,

using a water supply system called a qanat,

which allowed a garden to be planted

in a beautiful symphony of harmony.

He called it a Pairi Daiza, and this word,

once Westernized, became known worldwide as Paradise.

Generally speaking, no society is absolutely ideal.

There are problems everywhere, more or less,

but the kinds of problems are different.

When Shirin's grandparents were young,

many in Persia,

including the Muslim clerics, joined together

to turn their country

into a constitutional monarchy.

One step closer to democracy

and to the governing structure

of other European countries

where the main power rested

with the parliament and prime minister.

The king or the Shah,

as it was known in Persia,

the king became more

of a ceremonial position.

Then in 1909. .

Oil was struck at last

and drilling commenced.

The great oil company was formed.

A British company called Anglo Persian Oil controlled production,

and for the next 50 years

Persia’s oil refinery was the largest in the world,

supplying all of the United Kingdom's petroleum needs.

Tremendous and dramatic change

came to the country of Persia as a result.

Initially,

only 16 % of the net profits

from the oil went to the Persian people.

84% of the wealth left the county.

Twelve years before Shirin was born,

Persia changed its name to Iran.

Soon after,

the Anglo Persian oil company became known as British Petroleum.

Whatever happens in one part of the world

affects other parts as well.

If a small corner catches fire,

it can spread to other parts.

During World War Two, British troops occupied southern Iran

in order to protect Britain's oil investment.

And as the country struggled to recover from the war,

a leading lawyer named Mohammad Mossadeqh,

tried to negotiate a 50/50 split of oil profits with British Petroleum.

But his offer was rejected.

He became the first ever democratically elected Prime Minister

in the history of Iran,

and his parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry.

To many, he was a national hero.

But the retribution was swift.

Within three years

British and American intelligence agencies orchestrated a coup,

a government takeover.

And they brought back the Shah,

who they thought they could control, in his place.

From childhood, I fell in love with a phenomenon

I later learned was justice.

That is why I later became a student of law.

Entering law school was a turning point in my life.

Back then, political discussion was common in universities,

but I was not really political.

In the evenings, my friends and I

used to go to the cafeteria

and talk about the kinds of things

that young people like to talk about.

Students started to protest against the Shah

in Tehran, Europe, and the USA.

Students were always protesting.

Sometimes, my friends and I would join in too.

The Shah's modernization program

created rapid urbanization and westernization.

It also prompted concerns.

Outlets for political participation were minimal

and opposition parties were banned.

Social protest was often met with harassment,

and illegal detention and torture were commonplace

under the SAVAK, the Shah's secret police force.

Outwardly, with a swiftly expanding economy,

everything seemed to be going well in Iran.

But in reality,

as the huge divide between rich and poor continued to grow,

the Shah's autocracy began to be seen as corrupt

and unjust to many of the people.

And later, because of this feeling, I became a judge,

as I thought I could help execute and bring about justice.

I was proud of my profession.

Every day I would wear a suit

and heels not more than 2 inches high,

and go to the Ministry of Justice.

I had no issues in my new profession.

The society had accepted me very well.

I was one of the first women who became a Judge in Iran.

Prior to that time, women did not have the right to become Judges.

Also, I was promoted fast because

I was at the top of the list of people

who passed the Judgeship exams.

Also, at the same time I had

written a book on Criminal Law

and enjoyed fame as a young Judge.

At a later point of time, I became the

presiding Judge of Tehran Municipal Courts.

I was the youngest person to attain this position

among both women and men that year.

And that is when I met my husband.

A friend introduced us to each other.

Javad was a young and educated engineer.

We went out a few times together.

Then Javad proposed to me.

I told him we have only known each other for a few months,

we better think about it. He said fine, but how?

I said, let’s stay away from each other for a month.

Then, we will see how we feel.

If we still liked each other

then we would get married.

The one month passed,

and we agreed to get married.

So, I chose my husband myself.

That same year, 1974, the Shah made a fateful decision

to push OPEC to raise oil prices dramatically.

Western economies were hurt and gas lines formed.

The Shah collected billions.

In 1975,

he declared that Iran was a one party state

and banned all political parties other than his own.

That made his dictatorship complete.

He was the king of kings.

Tanks rumble across the desert, as one of the world's strongest

military powers flexes its armored muscle.

The country is Iran,

which hopes by the 1980’s

to have the fourth largest armed forces in the world

after the United States, the Soviet Union and China.

You are Britain's

biggest arms customer at the moment.

Do you mean to keep it that way?

If the world situation stays what it is

we have no other choice.

How effective is the cooperation that Britain is doing with Iran

at the moment on military equipment?

Well, I think it is very substantial.

Most of our armor is British.

Foreign advisers helped him

craft a plan to use his billions for even faster growth,

but it was too much, too soon.

Inflation skyrocketed.

A wave of rural workers were drawn to Tehran for jobs

that did not exist.

Factory workers and government employees

went on strike for six months.

The Shah declared martial law

and his military opened fire on protesters

during what became known as the Black Friday Massacre.

Soon, the cries of “The Shah must go”

changed to cries of “Death to the Shah”

Before 1978 ordinary people did not know

who Khomeini was.

They were not familiar with Khomeini.

Khomeini was a clergyman who was against the Shah.

During this time he had issued a few open letters,

that were read by religious people in mosques.

Ordinary people did not read his declarations.

Khomeini’s books were banned during the Shah's time.

And if they were found in someone's home, they could be punished,

imprisoned.

At this time, Revolutionary voices picked up and

Khomeini became the center of the Shah’s opposition,

specifically, among Iranian students

who studied abroad.

Many of these young supporters

gathered around him and demanded that he be resettled in France,

and this move to France resulted in more widespread

communication of Khomeini’s words.

Going to France resulted in the increase

of Khomeini's profile.

His declarations came to Iran on a daily basis,

so more and more people got to know him.

We were being promised that we would gain

independence and freedom

in the Islamic Republic.

And the words that Mr. Khomeini uttered

before coming to Iran were very charming.

He said everyone is free, women are equal,

and many other good things.

We used to protest and march every day.

Iranians from every strata of society

were shouting, “Down with the Shah”

When there is injustice, and no way of receiving justice, and

when several generations live in poverty and there is no hope

for the improvement of their lives,

out of hopelessness, they can forgo logic and resort to violence.

Khomeini, Khomeini, we're waiting for you.

Chaos reigned in the streets of Iran.

And in January of 1979,

the Shah abruptly left the country.

I am happy, so very happy,

the Shah left Iran, the Shah left Iran.

I'm terribly delighted.

This is something that Iranians

have been waiting for for many, many years.

And today you can see the reaction, this is the reaction of people

who are just overwhelmed by what has happened.

What is the meaning of this?

The meaning is that they're hoping that

they will be a free country from now on.

They're hoping, you know, the US support of the Shah

has not had any effect. So, you can see it.

Are you a student or a teacher?

No. No. I'm just a businessman.

I'm an Iranian. But also, a businessman.

Have you ever seen anything like this in your life?

No, never. And I wished,

I always wished I would be living when I see today like this.

The Shah has defected! The Shah has defected!

Two weeks later, Ayatollah Khomeini flew to Iran.

And he appointed a pro-democracy leader

to act as interim Prime Minister.

Suddenly everything seemed possible.

Books that had been banned were being printed,

and there was fervent talk of constitutional reform.

But there was a dark side as well.

One man who has been taking firm action

is the Ayatollah Khalkhali.

It was he who announced he was sending armed guerrillas

on a mission to assassinate the Shah in his exile.

He is also the power behind the Islamic revolutionary courts

held in the mosques which have dominated Iran

since the revolution.

At this Islamic court in Tehran,

the chief defendant was a former officer

of the SAVAK, the Shah's secret police,

on various murder and torture charges.

The trial was held in the mosque

of Tehran's largest prison, the Casa.

The proceedings were started with a recitation from the Koran

and three Muslim clergy were presiding.

The defendant confesses his crimes

while insisting that he had to act under orders,

but a death sentence is widely expected.

Outside in the prison grounds,

the public can examine the grim instruments of torture

once used by the secret police and nearby,

the simple graves of former Shah officials already

executed after going before the revolutionary court.

There have been over 300 executions since the court

started in February,

mostly for murder and torture of political opponents of the Shah.

And more executions are expected.

A line of fresh graves lies waiting.

Many people wanted to act fast

to reform the Constitution.

But then, in a surprising announcement,

Ayatollah Khomeini declared

that he had already drafted the new constitution himself,

one designed to take Iran in a different direction,

to become what he called an Islamic Republic.

What do they mean exactly?

We still don't know, I mean we don't always know.

I am Muslim. I know a little bit about Islam

certainly, like any other Muslim.

But, you know it depends very much about

how they are going, how, who is going to interpret

what in relation to that and that article,

the limitations of Islam are.

Within six months,

national elections were held

and his new constitution was adopted.

I just vote for Imam.

Because he said yes.

And I should follow him.

That's my only thing, yes.

You trust?

Yes, I trust him, yes.

The former Shah,

who was suffering from cancer,

sought refuge in the USA for cancer treatment.

A huge gang of young men

reacted with rage and stormed the U. S. embassy,

taking the staff hostage.

The interim Prime Minister and his entire cabinet resigned in protest

when Ayatollah Khomeini decided to support

the taking of American hostages.

And by December of 1979,

Iran was firmly in the hands of the hardline clerics.

My first shock after the Revolution happened,

a few months after the Revolution,

I was sitting at my desk in my courtroom

when the Personnel Office messenger

gave me an envelope. I opened it and saw

I had lost my judgeship.

At that time there were about 50 women Judges in Iran.

We were all demoted to administrative positions.

I was demoted to the position of clerk

of the same courtroom that I had presided over.

My only crime was that I was a woman.

Seven months later,

Iran's old enemy, Iraq,

under the leadership of dictator Saddam Hussein,

decided to take advantage of the tumultuous change taking place.

Saddam Hussein's army invaded Iran.

Ayatollah Khomeini called on the entire nation of Iran

to mobilize, calling it “the sacred defense”

Iraq had the greater military force.

Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guard

had decimated the Shah's former Army leadership

through execution and imprisonment.

But Iran had a population

that was three times as large as Iraq.

Untrained but passionate young volunteers,

some as young as 12 years old, came forward from across

Iran to defend their homeland.

They joined the Basij volunteer force

and they were used as human waves.

By the end of the war, 95,000

Iranian child soldiers were martyred for the cause.

In that same year,

Sharia law was implemented in Iran.

I first read the law in a newspaper.

I did not believe what I was reading.

I thought maybe I had made a mistake. I started reading it again.

Then I thought maybe they were not clear

about what they were trying to do.

So, I read it for a third time and

I realized, what I was reading was exactly what they meant.

They passed this bill into law.

In 1982,

Saddam Hussein offered a truce.

Ayatollah Khomeini vowed to fight on, to invade Iraq

and to turn that country into an Islamic Republic as well.

Now that I saw the results of the Revolution,

I can say that I really regretted it.

The nation of Iran made a big mistake.

Life during the eight year long Iran-Iraq war

was terrifying and tragic.

Iraq began what it called “the war of the cities”

with random shelling of all of the major cities of Iran,

people running for shelter as bombs fell out of the night sky.

Wave after wave of young men

continued to be used as cannon fodder

to clear the fields full of landmines.

Saddam Hussein violated international law repeatedly

by using chemical weapons to attack

both soldiers and civilians.

And when the war ended, not one inch of

territory had been gained by either side,

at a cost of 350 billion dollars,

and at a cost of more than one million lives.

We must acquaint young people with the realities of the world,

even if these realities are not pretty.

We must tell them what war means

and how far into the future the damages of war will affect us.

And yet, during those wartime years,

there were still some moments of sweetness.

Shirin's first daughter, Negar,

was born in 1980.

Her second daughter, Nargess,

was born in 1983.

And just one day after her

required 15 years of government service was completed,

Shirin applied for early retirement from her

sham job as a clerk.

She began to spend more of her time on a dusty plot of land

that she and her husband had purchased soon after their wedding,

planting rows and rows of fruit bearing trees

and the sweet smelling night blooming

jasmine of her childhood.

Over time,

they transformed it into an orchard, a refuge of their own,

far, far away on the outskirts of Tehran.

Here, they would gather for family celebrations

and watch their daughters grow.

This is when I said to myself I should do something.

What worried me most was that the younger generation,

including my daughters,

were going to ask me, "What did you do for us?"

From the beginning of the Revolution,

I had lost hope and changed my path.

But, that was not enough for me.

I had to rectify my mistakes.

I need to say I did not belong to any political party or group.

However, like millions of Iranians I participated

in the rallies and shouted “Long live Khomeini”

This was a mistake. Therefore, I had to rectify my mistake.

As a result I decided to open my Law Office,

and focused on defending victims of Human Rights violations.

My work was pro bono.

When the Islamic Revolution came about and said a woman

could no longer be a judge,

I changed my job, and became a lawyer.

This same motivation encouraged me

to become active in defending human rights.

The tragic gang rape and murder of a 14 year old girl

hit Shirin hard.

She wasn't able to win justice for the victim or her family.

Whenever I think that

justice has not been done, I feel a wound in my heart.

Shirin decided that she was

going to also focus on the rights of children

and of women.

With the help of a few friends,

I created a foundation to defend children.

Soon, they were asked to take on an explosive case,

the death of eight year old

Arian Golshani.

There were burn marks on Arian's body.

Her skull was fractured,

her arms were broken, and she weighed only 35 pounds.

She had been killed by her father.

Under Iranian law,

the husband got custody of any child after a divorce.

So the court gave Arian to her father,

even though he was a convicted criminal,

even though her mother fought for custody of Arian,

documenting his abuse of the little girl.

Shirin and her fellow lawyers

held a funeral for Arian before the trial.

At the end of the funeral

they each took a flier with the tragic

details out into the streets of Tehran

to let others know what had happened.

The courtroom was packed with women

who showed up in solidarity with Arian's mother.

You, the disgrace of all fathers in the world!

The trial ended with a conviction of murder.

Truly, the law has to be changed!

And under pressure

from women across the country,

Iran's parliament decided to change the law.

A court can no

longer automatically give custody of a child

to an unfit father.

Because children are vulnerable

and cannot defend themselves like an adult can,

they need more care.

Shirin’s Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child

opened free schools for street children in Tehran

because these children are some of the most vulnerable.

All of the teachers are volunteers.

Shirin decided to open a new foundation,

the Center for the Defense of Human Rights.

Approximately thirty attorneys joined us.

We all defended victims of Human Rights violations for free.

At that time the number of my cases had risen

to the extent that I personally could not take care

of all of them and my colleagues helped me.

Soon, Shirin

and her colleagues were asked to take on a dangerous case.

Two leading intellectuals and dissidents in Iran

were murdered in their home, in the first

of what became known as the “Chain Murders”

Within months, their daughter asked Shirin to represent her

and to try to find some sort of justice.

What I

and the Forouhar family want to know is,

Who

and for what purpose had ordered

the killing of the Forouhars and others like them?

An employee

of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence was arrested

and charged with committing the murder.

But before the trial could begin, he committed suicide in jail,

supposedly, by drinking hair removal cream.

Shirin showed the court dozens of bottles of hair removal cream

she and her staff had collected from stores across Tehran.

None of them was toxic.

We were not interested in two or three

junior officials of the Ministry of Intelligence.

They were carrying out orders.

They had permission to kill.

It was important to find out who had permitted

the killings and why.

The “Chain Murders”

of leading dissidents and intellectuals continued

to occur.

In the summer of 1999,

there was a public backlash.

University students in Tehran

began to protest the closing of a liberal newspaper

that had continued to report about the so-called

“Chain Murders” of leading dissidents in Iran.

Security forces and parliamentary vigilantes retaliated yesterday

during a nighttime raid on a student dormitory.

Many protesters were seriously injured

and one student was killed.

The family of the murdered student

asked Shirin to represent them.

She was able to secure a videotape

which recorded the confession of the man who had killed him.

But the court completely rejected his testimony,

calling it false.

I was the attorney for a student protestor who was killed,

and when I introduced a new witness to the court,

both the witness and myself ended up in jail.

I was in jail for 25 days and during the entire period,

I was in solitary confinement.

My cell was so small that if I would have been taller,

I wouldn't have been able to lay down in it.

There was only one lightbulb and it was on for 24 hours a day.

It had no windows at all.

And I was not able to tell

if it was daytime or nighttime.

And I had no access to radio, television, or newspapers

and I could not receive visitors or legal counsel.

Being in total isolation was extremely difficult to endure.

Human rights organizations around the world

continued to denounce the “Chain Murders”

In the spring of 2000,

in an unprecedented move, the government launched

an internal investigation and soon admitted

partial complicity in the killings.

Six months later, the lawyers representing

the “Chain Murder” victims were given 10 days

to read the investigation's findings.

There were stacks and stacks

of documents. And in one of those files,

Shirin found a sentence that would haunt her for years to come.

“The next person to be killed

is Shirin Ebadi. ”

Only the holy month of Ramadan,

when it is forbidden to kill, postponed her assassination.

Only a decision by the Iranian government

to arrest one of their own employees

and to blame him for all of the killings,

saved Shirin from being the next victim of the “Chain Murders”

She had narrowly escaped danger,

once again.

Shirin’s fame as a leading expert on Islamic law continued to grow.

She continued to give lectures on the subject in Iran

and now in Europe as well.

In 2001, she was honored by Norway's

Rafto Foundation for Human Rights

for her courageous work in the field.

She caught the attention of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

And in 2003, at a legal conference in Paris,

she received some incredible news.

She had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

When I got back home to Iran, and entered the airport,

suddenly I realized that a vast number of Iranians

had come to welcome me.

The crowd was so large that

it was simply not possible

for me to go through the crowd.

I thanked and thanked them while I was on the platform.

The most beautiful scene I witnessed,

was some of the street kids from our program

who came to sing and play their music.

And when I saw this, I couldn't stop crying.

Many people were crying and congratulating me.

It was clear to me, that the Nobel Prize I won

actually gave the Iranian people a national pride.

Long live Ebadi!

The government of Iran denounced the decision

of the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation, calling it “political”

People used to tell me that the name of Iran

has been associated with bad news in the past.

This is the first time that the name of Iran was being associated

with an accomplishment, one that people took so much pride in.

Shirin Ebadi was the first Muslim woman

and the only Iranian to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her only regret was that her

father was not alive to share this moment with her.

He passed away 10 years before she won

the Nobel Peace Prize.

I lost a person who always supported me.

He always protected me.

It took me a while to find myself again.

I thought the world had come to an end.

But my two little girls helped me find myself again.

I concluded that my father would not be happy to see me

in that condition if he were alive.

My father was a very strong man.

He did not like to see us weak and desperate.

So for the happiness of his spirit, I had to get up.

When I won the Nobel Peace Prize I used a portion

of the prize money to purchase an office

for this NGO and furnished it.

I invested the rest of the prize, and used the dividends

to help the families of political prisoners.

Everyone is born with a certain feeling.

I believe the most fortunate of all people

are the ones who go after their instincts and their nature.

A graduate of Tehran University,

Judge Ebadi was one of Iran's first female judges

in 1975. After the ‘79 Islamic revolution,

she was forced to resign when she was told

she could no longer serve on the bench

because she's a woman.

She went on to establish a law practice

representing political dissidents, Iranian women

and families of artists and intellectuals

killed by the government.

Over the course of her career,

Shirin Ebadi has been jailed.

In addition to her work as a lawyer,

she's also written 11 books on human

rights and on family law, setting out the rights of children.

As she speaks around the world now,

opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Iraq traditionally under Saddam Hussein,

an enemy of the Iranian government,

the two countries, your two countries fought a war

for many years that took many, many lives.

Many might be surprised

that you criticize the U. S. invasion.

Democracy means that people need to decide on their own.

We have to remember that democracy is not a commodity

that can be offered to another country.

Can you talk about your representation

of the family of Zahra Kazemi?

What happened to her first?

And what you are doing?

Zahra Kazemi was a photojournalist,

a Canadian Iranian who was arrested in Tehran.

In Evin prison she was hit on the head and died as a result.

Do you believe the people who are responsible

for Zahra's death are being charged?

I'm not particularly interested

in the individuals who have been accused.

What is important is to change

the administration of the current system,

so the tragedy of Zahra Kazemi

will not be repeated in the future.

What gives you hope? Where do you see change happening?

What gives me hope is people's desire for hope and change.

People are very much interested in changing these laws.

And, finally, they will win.

Shirin began to represent Zahra's mother in court.

The freelance photographer from Canada was arrested

in Iran and branded a spy for taking photos of Evin Prison.

She was held and tortured for 77 hours

and then spent 14 days in a hospital

controlled by the hardline Revolutionary Guards.

Friends who saw her there

said she was unconscious and almost unrecognizable,

with severe cuts and bruises on her face and body.

She was then quickly buried to cover up

the signs of torture.

Shirin filed an appeal to open a murder investigation,

saying that the killing was premeditated.

But the justice system refused her claim.

We don't accept this as a fair trial. We don't accept this as a fair trial.

The investigation is not complete yet.

And they are not willing to complete it.

And they are not willing to complete it.

When the trial ended, as a protest,

Zahra Kazemi's mother and her attorneys left the courtroom.

In the end, Shirin lost the case

and Zahra's killers were never brought to justice.

It is this patriarchal culture

that holds back the progress of Human Rights in Iran.

We must change this male dominated,

tribal mentality and culture

to a humanitarian one.

In 2006,

Shirin joined forces with several of her fellow lawyers

who had created a campaign aimed specifically at expanding

rights and protection for women in Iran.

Iran has much potential for change.

We have a very good student movement,

a great feminist movement.

The people of Iran are resisting their government.

And I'm sure that they will be able

to reform the government over time.

I am Nasrin Sotoudeh,

I am the attorney for women activists

and the One Million Signatures campaign

which tries to improve the laws pertaining to Women’s Rights.

This will demonstrate to the government of Iran

that changing the laws regarding women,

with full rights as citizens of a society,

is not only a Western concept,

but a concept accepted by Muslim women

who have signed the campaign petition,

and are requesting these changes.

I'm a member of the One Million Signature campaign.

That it, it just started about eight months ago.

We decided to gather one million signatures

from the women in Iran to show that we want to change the law.

So we started to talk with people face to face.

For example, we go to the teachers,

with the nurses, the doctors, we went to the homes,

the houses. We talk about their lives, our lives.

You've heard about the violation of Women’s Rights in Iran.

But, I need to tell you that

in Iran women are resisting and they are fighting back hard.

This campaign is unprecedented in Iranian history.

Never in the past,

have even men have been able to organise well,

where regardless of political views,

people can gather around a common cause.

But women are accomplishing this, not only practicing democracy,

but practicing reinstatement of Women’s Rights.

This is a project for two years.

We hope that we can finish it

before they arrest or send to jail

or being in the court or something like that.

Yes, it is natural that I should be scared.

Many times Judges have told me

that they will throw me in prison too.

However, I always told them that it does not matter,

since in prison I will be resting.

I think it is easier to tolerate prison than the situation outside.

The One Million Signatures

campaign started to receive international support and acclaim.

Then the death threats against Shirin and her daughters

started to increase, to intensify.

Shirin encouraged her daughters to focus on their studies

and to choose excellent universities.

Negar left for graduate school

at McGill University in Montreal, Canada soon after.

On March 6, 2008, Parvin Ardalan was to be awarded

the Olof Palme Award in Sweden

for her work on the One Million Signatures campaign.

Instead, she was arrested at the Tehran airport,

and sentenced to three years in prison

for allegedly threatening the national security.

Then, the government of President

Ahmadinejad started to come after Shirin herself.

In December of 2008, a celebration

at Shirin’s Center for the Defense of Human

Rights was disrupted by police.

They said that the gathering was banned

and that the Center for the Defense of Human Rights

must shut its doors forever.

Their files and computers were confiscated.

Human Rights Watch issued a report saying

that it was extremely concerned about the safety of Shirin Ebadi

after both her home and her office were attacked

by a pro-government mob.

But the campaign for Human Rights

for the women of Iran continued on.

They were joined by others who were also full of discontent,

all coming together to challenge the ironclad

rule of the hardliners in Iran.

They were all struggling for reform.

And in the run up to the presidential election in 2009,

this movement was ascendant.

As a woman, equal rights for all is important to me,

and freedom of speech is also very important.

It all goes back to freedom of speech.

As a young Iranian, I will vote for Mr. Mousavi

and I have participated in his campaigning,

for our economy and for the freedom of young people.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, he's not exactly what we want,

but he's better than the other, and can at least bring change.

We don't want things this way. No one wants it like this.

If the candidates that prioritize Human Rights

in their policies are elected,

since the public will have the right to question them,

this could naturally improve the situation.

Shirin's youngest daughter, Nargess,

left to attend McGill University in Canada,

following in her sister's footsteps.

And on the day before the 2009 presidential election,

Shirin left the country for a speaking tour in Europe.

The reformist candidate,

former Prime Minister Mousavi,

had more supporters than President Ahmadinejad.

Violations of basic human rights

had more than tripled during his first term as president.

When the election was

held, Moussavi declared victory.

His supporters celebrated the triumph

of their green movement for change.

But then, in a sinister turn,

President Ahmadinejad declared that, no, he had won the election

in a landslide, and with more than two thirds of the votes.

Ayatollah Khamenei ratified these false results,

giving him a second term as President.

Iran erupted in protest

in the largest demonstrations to be seen across the country

since the 1979 revolution.

Shirin’s friends urged her

to stay in Europe and to tell the world

what was going on.

The people of Iran peacefully demand liberty for Iran

and democracy for Iranians.

She appealed

to the European Union and to governments around the world.

I asked the United Nation's Mr. Ban Ki-moon,

to send a special envoy to Iran to investigate the situation.

And today I'm asking the European Parliament to send

a special delegation to Iran

to investigate and determine the truth.

But, her efforts failed.

An unprecedented government crackdown

began in Iran with waves of arrest

and imprisonment.

Shirin continued

to travel the world, telling everyone she could

what was happening in Iran.

I have no trust in what the government says.

I have no trust in what the government says.

The Iranian government retaliated

by invalidating Shirin's husband's passport

so that he could not leave the country and join her.

Both her husband and her sister

were arrested and sent to prison.

The government confiscated everything that Shirin owned,

including her home and her office, including her father's house,

even including her Nobel Peace Prize.

And we are shocked by the actions of the Iranian authorities.

Shirin Ebadi has done nothing wrong,

and we think that she is being punished

in a very, in a totally illegal way.

And not only is she being punished, but her husband,

friends and family members have also been punished.

This is totally unacceptable.

This is the only example we have of the diploma and the medal

being confiscated by the authorities.

Nasrin was arrested,

charged with spreading propaganda,

and sentenced to 11 years in Evin prison.

Narges was arrested,

charged with acting against the national security,

and sentenced to 11 years in Evin prison, as well.

The only thing that Shirin could save

was her garden, her family orchard.

A friend agreed to purchase it

when the Iranian government put it up for auction.

His family now gathers there

to laugh, to play, and it still remains

a refuge from the storm.

Three months later,

in the cruelest blow of all,

the government of Iran set a trap for Shirin's husband,

Javad, who was home all alone and in despair

after being released from prison.

I think what they did to my husband is inconceivable.

Everything that happened to him, broke him.

He suffered a lot.

My husband, Javad,

was not political at all, but he did not oppose my work.

We had a good life together.

In 2009, when my home and office were raided

and everything that happened, I did not go back to Iran.

This is when the government decided to play a dirty trick on Javad.

One of our old acquaintances was recruited

to cooperate with the government.

This person invited my husband and his ex-girlfriend to her house.

There she suggested to Javad, now that your wife is away,

you two can reconcile and become friends again.

After dinner she pretended to have something to do

and left the room.

They both drank, kissed and made love.

Ten minutes later, the door of a different room in the house opened

and an intelligence official walked in with a camcorder in his hand,

and said he had recorded everything.

Right then and there, they put Javad in handcuffs and took him in.

He was flogged for drinking wine.

He was told that he had committed adultery

and his punishment was to be stoned to death.

He asked for an attorney, but the judge said,

“The video exists, I can see everything. It's death by stoning. "

Blindfolded, they brought him back to his cell.

A bit later, one other officer,

one of those who usually plays the role of the good cop,

entered the cell and talked him into reading off of a script

that had been prepared by them for television,

in exchange for the dismissal of the adultery case.

My husband agreed. He had to agree.

The film starts with an anchor person stating that

the woman who is your hero has another face too.

Listen to her husband speak about her.

He was set free afterwards.

Then he called me, in tears, and

he told me what had happened.

I asked him to stay calm.

I told him that I was familiar with these tactics

and know what dirty tricks

these people play to break those who criticize them.

Iranian Intelligence Officers continued

to interrogate him on a weekly basis,

demanding that he make his wife

stop publicly speaking against them.

"She is your wife. You have to be able to control her. " they said.

And all of this treatment resulted in the breaking of this man.

He underwent a lot.

Finally we were divorced on his call

so that we could stop this persecution by the government.

But, he paid for it too.

Javad suffered diminished

mental capacity as a result of this imprisonment and abuse.

He continues to live in Iran, under the care of his sister

and family.

Today, Shirin

is based in London and works all over the world.

Both of her daughters are highly educated and successful.

Negar lives in the USA.

Nargess lives in London as well.

And they remain a tightly knit family.

They keep in touch with Javad by telephone,

though he continues to suffer from dementia.

A few of my friends told me not to go back to Iran.

When I asked them why,

they told me I could do more from outside of Iran.

“Go tell the world what has happened to the people of Iran. ”

I agreed with them.

It is best for me to go all over the world and speak,

to write books, articles, and tell the world what is going on in Iran.

During this time Iranian officials sent messages to me

indicating that if I agreed to become silent,

they would return my property,

there would be no problem facing me.

I said no, that I would not become silent under any condition.

With all the atrocities committed in Iran, I cannot be silent.

Shirin focuses on the Nobel Women's Initiative

that she co-founded with Jody Williams,

which helps female activists fight for equal rights

in many different parts of the world.

And she works closely with her fellow Nobel Peace laureates

to support equal rights for women in Muslim countries

and in all countries, regardless of the religion or culture.

What causes discrimination against women is not religion.

It is the patriarchal culture that doesn't

accept equality of human beings.

When I say patriarchal, I'm not referring

to the masculine gender. I'm talking about a culture

that doesn't accept equality,

and because this culture doesn't believe in equality,

it has no respect for women, and it can't tolerate democracy either.

In countries where there is more democracy,

women have a better situation.

That’s right.

Although the women are victims of such a culture,

they're also responsible for carrying on this culture as well.

We must not forget that every man who

is a bully has been raised by a woman.

So it's important that we make women aware of this wrong culture.

And if we resist this culture, if we struggle against it,

then we can have equal rights in any religion and in any culture.

Yet her most important work

continues to be her fight for human rights for the people of Iran,

as perhaps the world's leading critic

of Iran's Islamic Republic.

They hide behind the name Islam in order to deprive the rights

of half of society, in other words, women.

And in order to massacre innocent civilians

and to justify their terrorist deeds.

As Iran's leaders become less popular at home,

in this twilight of the Iranian revolution,

they have become even more cruel.

On November 16, 2019,

massive protests erupted across Iran

when the regime raised gasoline prices

by more than 50 percent.

Cries of “Death to the Supreme Leader”

rang out across the nation.

The hardline leadership responded by cutting off the Internet

and then opening fire to crush the people

who had filled the streets.

They killed more than 1,000 of the protesters,

and many more were imprisoned.

In January of 2020,

Iran mistakenly shot down

a commercial airliner full of college students

returning to Canada to resume their university studies.

Then they denied responsibility for the crash of the airplane,

full of bright young Iranians whose lives were cut short

so tragically.

Protesters filled the streets of Iran once again,

and many of them are now locked up in Iranian prisons

as the government struggles to contain popular dissent.

Iran's mishandling of the pandemic and its aftermath

has now pushed the majority of the people of Iran to the brink.

They no longer support the 40 year old

experiment of an Islamic Republic.

Shirin Ebadi is calling for a U. N. monitored referendum

on changing the Iranian constitution,

so the people of Iran themselves have the opportunity

to eliminate the unelected office of Supreme Leader,

and to create a secular democracy instead.

As an Iranian, I want to say shame to all dictators,

and shame on our dictator and government who

will forego the Iranian national interest to stay in power.

Do people know,

on average one person is executed every day in Iran?

Or that women are sent to prison

for trying to attend a football match?

Or that a father can cut off his daughter's head

and escape prison by calling it an honor killing?

Or that hundreds of women are now in prison

for refusing to wear a mandatory head scarf?

Nasrin agreed to defend these women in court.

The government of Iran retaliated by sentencing Nasrin herself

to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Narges continued to speak up

for the families of the protesters killed.

The government retaliated by sentencing her again

to eight years in prison and seventy lashes,

in a trial that was only 5 minutes long.

The majority of college graduates in Iran are women,

and the hardline clerics are determined to keep them in line.

If they ever do receive greater rights,

they may very well lead the charge

to bring the current regime down.

We, the people of Iran, are fighting for democracy,

and we know that we will be victorious one day.

I am sure that I will go back to Iran one day soon.

Every morning I wake up with this dream

and I know that this dream,

like other dreams that I've had in life, will come true.

"My country, I shall build you again,

even if with bricks of my life.

I shall erect pillars beneath your roof,

even if with my own bones.

I shall again smell those flowers

favored by your young.

I shall again cleanse you of blood

with the flood of my own tears. "