Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf today awarded the 2023 Nobel Prizes in Literature, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. Each award is accompanied by a cash prize of 11 million Swedish kronor, or about one million US dollars. Traditionally, the awards are presented on the anniversary of the death of the founder of the prizes, Alfred Nobel.
By tradition, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the Norwegian capital Oslo by King Harald. Its recipient is the Iranian human rights activist and feminist Narges Mohammadi, who, however, did not receive the award in person because she was thrown into an Iranian prison. Mohammadi was awarded the prestigious recognition for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, as well as her fight for human rights and freedom for all. Her award was received by her husband Taghi Rahmani, daughter Kiana and son Ali Rahmani. The award diploma was placed on the empty chair where their mother was supposed to sit. Kiana and Ali read a message from their mother, in which the 51-year-old human rights activist said the Iranian people would overcome the authoritarianism imposed by a government that has lost legitimacy and public support. Narges Mohammadi also blamed Iran's "tyrannical and anti-women religious" government.
Mohammadi, who campaigned against mandatory hijab wearing and the death penalty in Iran, has been detained since 2021 in the capital's Evin prison.
On Saturday, her husband and brother said she was launching a new hunger strike from her prison cell "in solidarity" with the Baha'i religious minority as she was presented with the award in Oslo. "She is not here with us today, she is in prison and will go on hunger strike in solidarity with a religious minority, but we feel her presence here," her younger brother Hamidreza Mohammadi said in a brief opening statement.
Husband Taghi Rahmani explained that the strike was a gesture of solidarity with the Baha'i religious minority, whose two leading figures are also on hunger strike.
Iran's largest religious minority, the Baha'i community, faces discrimination in many areas of society, according to its representatives.
Mohammadi already went on a several-day hunger strike in early November to get the right to be transferred to hospital without covering her head. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in October "for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran". Arrested 13 times, sentenced five times to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes and jailed again since 2021, Mohammadi has spent much of the past two decades in and out of prison and has not seen her children for eight years , who are now in France. Narges Mohammadi is one of the women leading the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, which has involved months of protests in Iran sparked by the death in September 2022 in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Islamic republic strict dress code for women. /BGNES
