Iranian Journalist and Activist Narges Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize

Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, sentenced to 30 years in prison, receives the Nobel Peace Prize for the fight for women's rights in Iran.

This was announced in Oslo when the award was announced. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Mohammadi received the prize for "her struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all in Iran."

Mohammadi is currently in prison after 13 arrests and five convictions, including 154 lashes. She received the award just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the moral police. Amini's case led to mass protests that became the largest anti-regime demonstrations and grew in places from a demand for rights to a demand for an end to the Islamic Republic established by the 1979 revolution.

"Her brave fight has come at a huge personal cost", said Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen. "She is in prison even as I speak".

Asked what he hopes the award will change in Iran, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee expressed hope that it will encourage the movement for women's rights and democratic freedoms in Iran to continue its work. "If the Iranian authorities make the right decision, she will be released to receive the award, as we hope," she added, when asked how the fact that Mohammadi was imprisoned would affect the ceremony in December.

Back in the 1990s as a physics student, Narges Mohammadi defended equality and women's rights. Then, as an engineer and columnist for reformist publications, she began working with a human rights organization founded by another Nobel laureate, Shirin Ebadi (2003). She was first detained and arrested in 2011 for her efforts to help jailed activists and their families. Released on bail two years later, she began a new campaign against the death penalty.

As of January 2022, over 860 prisoners have been sentenced to death in Iran. From prison, Mohammadi expressed support for the other convicts and those participating in the demonstrations in support of Amini, for which she was punished by the prison administration. Even in prison, "she works to make sure that the protests do not die out," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

Nobel Week ends with this prize; only the economics prize remains, often called the Nobel of Economics but awarded by the Swedish central bank.

A total of 110 people and 30 organizations have received the Nobel Peace Prize since 1901, when it was first awarded. Their number is greater than the age of the award, as it has been given more than once to two or more winners.

Like the prize for literature, the prize for peace is proving difficult to predict; 2023 was no exception

Among the names that appeared on a list of more than 350 people are - including on betting sites - the names of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (unlikely while his country is at war), Swedish activist Greta Thunberg (who often appears on such lists), but also other climate activists such as Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Philippines), Juan Carlos Jintiach (Ecuador), Vanessa Nakate (Uganda); UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and others.

Usually, the Nobel Peace Prize - the only one announced in Oslo - causes the most controversy. Among its recipients are human rights defenders from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus (last year), the editor-in-chief of "Novaya Gazeta" Dmitry Muratov and the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa (2021), Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (2019), and at the end of the past and the beginning of the last decade - American President Barack Obama, the European Union.

This year's winner also receives a cash prize of 11 million Swedish krona, which equates to almost one million US dollars (a 10% increase from 2022). The laureate is presented with a diploma and one of the Nobel Committee's iconic 18-karat gold medals. The obverse features a profile of the founder, Alfred Nobel, and the reverse, three men "forming a fraternal bond", with the inscription Pro pace et fraternitate gentium, ("For peace and brotherhood of men").

In recent years, there has been a fairly broad interpretation of the Nobel's covenant that the prize be awarded to the person "who has done the most or the best to promote brotherhood among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peaceful congresses."

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