01 March 2009

Shirin Ebadi: Faith in Freedom

Shirin Ebadi

This article appears in the March 2009 issue of eJournal USA, Nonviolent Paths to Social Change (PDF, 783 KB).

Whether they agree or disagree with her, anyone who has heard Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, can have little doubt about the uncompromising dedication she brings to the cause of human rights and political freedom.

“Her display of energy and emotion made each word delivered across the room like the beat of the drum that resonates long after the drummer has stopped,” an Iranian-Canadian lawyer commented on Iranica.com after an Ebadi speech in Toronto.

In its announcement, the Nobel Committee said of Ebadi, “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer, and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran, and far beyond its borders. She has stood up as a sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threats to her own safety.”

Ebadi, born in 1947, graduated from Tehran University, where she later earned a doctorate in law while working her way up in the Department of Justice. She became Iran’s first female judge as head of the Tehran city court. Ebadi was forced to resign after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which viewed women as unsuitable for such positions. The authorities made her a clerk in the very court where she had presided.

Ebadi resigned to establish a private law practice and write extensively on a wide range of legal issues, notably those pertaining to women, children, and family law. She also began taking difficult, potentially dangerous cases involving suppression of free speech, as well as the harassment and even murder of reformist figures by elements linked to the government’s security services.

“Her refusal to be silenced and her willingness to take on politically sensitive cases have won the admiration of human rights groups across the world,” commented a Middle Eastern analyst with the British Broadcasting Service.

Despite threats and harassment from the government, Ebadi’s multifaceted campaign for human rights, especially those of women and children, continues to reverberate throughout Iran and the world. At home, she helped found the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in 1995 and the Human Rights Defense Center in 2001. She continues to write and travel extensively, lecturing on social justice and the role of women in Islam in Europe, the United States, and many other countries.

Ebadi has denounced outside intervention in the affairs of Iran and other nations — “I maintain that nothing useful and lasting can emerge from violence” — while also insisting on the universality of the ideals of freedom and democracy, especially for women. In her memoir, Iran Awakening, she observed how the old regime mandated the forced unveiling of women and the new revolutionary government demanded that women again take up the veil. “Reza Shah was the first, but not the last Iranian ruler to act out a political agenda on the frontier of women’s bodies."

In 2006, Ebadi joined other Nobel laureates to establish the Women’s Nobel Initiative “to bring together our extraordinary experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality.” Two years later the organization denounced the Iranian government’s renewed campaign of harassment and intimidation against Ebadi and her human rights organization.

Ebadi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran in January 2009, “Regardless of all pressures, I am not leaving Iran and I am not ceasing my human rights activities. I will continue on the same path.”

In Iran Awakening Ebadi wrote, “In the last 23 years, from the day I was stripped of my judgeship ... I have repeated one refrain: An interpretation of Islam that is in harmony with equality and democracy is an authentic expression of faith. It is not religion that binds women, but the selective dictates of those who wish them cloistered. That belief, along with the conviction that change in Iran must come peacefully and from within, has underpinned my work.”

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.