IRANIAN ACTIVIST ACCEPTS NOBEL PRIZE

December 10, 2003 – (AP) Iranian democracy activist Shirin Ebadi received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday, saying it would inspire Iranians and women around the Muslim world to seek their rights and denouncing leaders who use Islam as a pretext for dictatorship.

Ebadi, the first Iranian and Muslim woman to win the Peace Prize, appeared at the award ceremony without the headscarf that Iran requires women to wear in public, in what many viewed as a silent expression of her battle for freedom.

An audience of hundreds, including members of the Norwegian royal family, rose to give the laureate a standing ovation after she was given the coveted Nobel gold medal and diploma.

The award ``inspires me and millions of Iranians and nationals of Islamic states with the hope that our efforts, endeavors and struggles toward the realization of human rights and the establishment of democracy ... enjoy the support, backing and solidarity of international civil society,'' Ebadi said a speech after receiving the $1.4 million award.

``Undoubtedly, my selection will be an inspiration to the masses of women striving to realize their rights, not only in Iran but throughout the region,'' she said, speaking in Farsi.

Ebadi also criticized the United States for using the war on terror as a pretext for violating human rights, pointing to the detention of hundreds of
Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without access to lawyers.

The 56-year-old lawyer, author and activist, Iran's first female judge, was named the 2003 Nobel peace laureate for her work in fighting for democracy and the rights of women and children. In 2000, she was jailed for three weeks on charges of slandering government officials and banned from working as a lawyer after riling her nation's theocratic rulers.

Since winning the Nobel, Iranian reformers have looked to Ebadi to rally opposition to unelected hard-liners who oppose any change to the conservative Islamic system of running the country. Hard-liners have denounced her as a ``Western mercenary'' and she recently was given police bodyguards after receiving numerous death threats.

Last week, about 60 female hard-liners prevented Ebadi from making a speech at a women's university in Tehran.

Ahead of the ceremony outside Oslo City Hall, thousands of children sang for the laureate, with snow surrounding the building.

Ebadi, wearing a light-colored skirt and blouse, spoke during a solemn one-hour ceremony before an audience that included members of Ebadi's own family and Academy Award winning actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The ceremony also featured music performed live by an Iranian-Kurd folk music group.

``If the 21st Century wishes to free itself from the cycle of violence, acts of terror and war ... there is no other way except by understanding and putting into practice every human right for all mankind regardless of race, gender, faith, nationality or social status,'' she said, according to an English translation of her speech.

The other 10 Nobel winners, including six Americans, were to receive the awards for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics in Stockholm, Sweden. J.M. Coetzee, 63, was to receive the literature prize, the second South African to pick up the award after Nadine Gordimer in 1991.

In her acceptance speech, Ebadi said despotism was incompatible with Iranian and Islamic traditions.

``Some Muslims, under the pretext that democracy and human rights are not compatible with Islamic teachings and the traditional structure of Islamic societies, have justified despotic governments and continue to do so,'' Ebadi said.

She said the plight of women in Islamic states and the lack of freedom and democracy is caused by ``the patriarchal and male dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam.''

Ebadi also took the United States to task for its human rights record.

She warned that threats to human rights also come from countries who have used the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as pretexts for limiting freedoms.

``Regulations restricting human rights and basic freedoms ... have been justified and given legitimacy under the cloak of the war on terrorism,'' she said. She also criticized the world's failure to enforce U.S. resolutions calling for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Nobel Prizes, first awarded in 1901, were created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and are always presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of his death in 1896.

Nobel Peace Prize: http://www.nobel.no

From: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nobel-Peace-Prize.html