On October 6, 2023, Nobel Peace Prize 2023 was awarded to 51-year-old Narges Mohammadi from Iran “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.
- With this win, she became the 2nd Iranian woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize after Shirin Ebadi (also the first Muslim woman) who won the award in 2003.
- Notably, Narges Mohammadi is currently serving a 10-year, 9-month jail sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran on various charges, including spreading propaganda against the state.
The winner was announced by the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee 2023, Berit Reiss-Andersen.
Click here for official announcement
Prize Money: Prize Money: Recipients of the Nobel Prize are presented with a Nobel Prize diploma(certificate), a gold medal, and a cash award. The Nobel Prize amount for 2023 is set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 11 million (approximately USD 993,000) per full Nobel Prize.
About Narges Mohammadi:
i.Narges Mohammadi, hailing from Zanjan, Iran, is an engineer, physicist and a prominent human rights activist.
ii.She has fought against the oppression of women in Iran for 30 years and opposes the death penalty in a country that reports most state executions.
iii.She is the deputy director of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) and an advocate for Iranian women’s rights.
iv.She has been arrested 13 times, convicted five times, and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes by the Iranian regime.
v.In 2011 and 2015, she was arrested and held in Zanjan Central Prison, released in 2020 after a reduced sentence.
vi.She received the 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prize for upholding human rights as a scientist.
vii.In 2023, she was awarded the Olof Palme Prize, PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, and UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
viii.She authored ‘White Torture: Inside Iran’s Prisons for Women,’ published by OneWorld Publications in 2022.
Key Points:
i.NobelPeace Prize 2023 also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.
ii.In 2022, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Centre for Civil Liberties.
Facts on the Nobel Peace Prize:
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. The Nobel Peace Prize is given for promoting peace, reducing standing armies, and fostering fraternity between nations.
- From 1901 to 2023, the Peace Prize has been awarded 104 times to 141 laureates, including 111 individuals and 30 organisations.
- It was not awarded on 19 occasions: in 1914-1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939-1943, 1948, 1955-1956, 1966-1967 and 1972.
- The Norwegian Nobel Committee, consisting of five members, decides and awards the Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
Youngest laureate: Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17. She shared the award with Kailash Satyarthi of India.
Oldest laureate: Joseph Rotblat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 at the age of 87. He shared the award with Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Female laureates: Of the 111 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 19 are women. The first time a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a woman was in 1905, to Bertha von Suttner.
Notes:
i.Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 “for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity”. She was born in Uskup, Ottoman Empire(now Skopje, North Macedonia) and got her Indian citizenship in 1948.
- She became the first Indian to win Nobel Peace Prize and the first Indian Woman to win a Nobel Prize.
ii.Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 “for the struggle against the suppression of children and young people and the right of all children to education”.
- He is the first India born Nobel Peace Laureate.
Recent Related News:
i.British children’s writer and performance poet, Michael Rosen(77 years old), has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize 2023. He will receive the award in a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library on 11 October 2023.
ii.4 Indian Americans, Jayshree Ullal, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Arista Networks, Neerja Sethi, co-Founder of Syntel, Neha Narkhede, co-founder of Confluent, and Indra Nooyi, former chair and CEO of PepsiCo, were featured on the 2023 America’s Richest Self-Made Women, 9th edition of Forbes’ annual ranking of the United States of America (USA)’s most successful women entrepreneurs, executives and entertainers.
About Iran:
Capital– Tehran
Currency– Iranian Rial
President– Ebrahim Raisi
