New Delhi: Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner and women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi smuggled a message out of her Tehran cell late Tuesday, which said, “Victory is not easy, but it is certain,” reported news agency AFP.
In a message delivered in French by her daughter, Kiana Rahmani, and shared on the official Nobel website, the 51-year-old activist and journalist expressed “sincere gratitude” to the Norwegian Nobel committee for the Nobel Prize.
The imprisoned women’s rights advocate won the 2023 Peace Prize on October 6 in a rebuke to Tehran’s theocratic leaders and a boost for anti-government protesters, while also drawing the Islamic Republic’s swift condemnation.
According to AFP, Mohammadi once again criticised the requirement for women in Iran to wear a headscarf and denounced Iranian authorities.
“The compulsory hijab is a means of control and repression imposed on the society and on which the continuation and survival of this authoritarian religious regime depends,” she declared through her 17-year-old daughter, who has taken refuge in France along with her family.
She condemned “a regime that has institutionalized deprivation and poverty in society for forty-five years”, adding that it was “built on lies, deception, cunning, and intimidation,” AFP reported.
Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin Prison amounting to about 12 years imprisonment, one of the many periods she has been detained behind bars, according to the Front Line Defenders rights organisation, reported Reuters.
“We, the people of Iran, demand democracy, freedom, human rights, and equality, and the Islamic Republic is the main obstacle in the way of realizing these national demands,” Mohammadi said in her message.
“We… are struggling to transition away from this religious authoritarian regime through solidarity and drawing on the power of a non-violent and unstoppable process in order to revive the honor and pride of Iran and human dignity and prestige for its people,” she continued in the message.
“Victory is not easy, but it is certain,” she concluded, reported AFP.
