SHIRIN EBADY
Shirin Ebadi (born 1947) is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.
Ebadi was born in Hamedan. He father was Mohammad Ali Ebadi, the city's chief notary public and a professor of commercial law. The family moved to Tehran in 1948.
Ebadi entered the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965, and participated in the entry exam for judges immediately after graduation in 1969. She officially started her career as a judge in March, 1970, after a six-month internship period. She continued her studies in University of Tehran in the meanwhile, and received a master's degree in law in 1971. In 1975, she became the first woman in Iranian law history to head a legislative branch.
Ebadi was assigned to a lower position, actually the same branch's secretary, following the Iranian revolution in 1979, when conservative clerics insisted that judgement is forbidden for women in Islam. After protests by her and other female judges, they were assigned to a little higher position, a "law expert." She finally asked for early retirement when she could not stand her situation.
Because of rejected applications, Ebadi was not able to work as a lawyer until 1993, when she was able to open a lawyer office. She used the free time to write a few books and many articles in Iranian periodicals, which made her known widely.
On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The selection of Ebadi by the Norwegian Nobel committee is thought by some observers to represent an implicit criticism of American policy in the Middle East, in particular the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. George W. Bush has referred to Iran as a member of the axis of evil, and Iran has also been suggested as a possible invasion target. At a press conference shortly after the Peace Prize announcement, Ebadi herself explicitly rejected foreign interference in the country's affairs: "The fight for human rights is conducted in Iran by the Iranian people, and we are against any foreign intervention in Iran."
On the other hand, some observers also view her selection as a calculated and political one, along the lines of the selection of Lech Walesa and Mikhail Gorbachev, among others, for the Peace Award. They claim that none of Ebadi's previous activities were directly related to the stated goals for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, as originally stated by Alfred Nobel, and that according to the will of Alfred Nobel the prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". Among surprises, President Khatami has been among the latter group, mentioning that although the scientific Nobels are important, the Peace Prize "is not important and is political".
In November 2003, one month after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, she declared that she would provide legal representation for the family of the murdered freelance photographer Zahra Kazemi.
As of 2004, she lives with her husband, an electrical engineer, and has two daughters who are university students.