The Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony were held in Oslo City Hall. The ceremony contained artistic performances and the speech of Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was represented by her children, seventeen-year-old Ali and Kiana Rahmani.
Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, has been held since 2021 in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Instead, her 17-year-old twins Ali and Kiana, both living in exile in France since 2015, received the award on her behalf, reading a speech she managed to smuggle out of her cell.
“I am a Middle Eastern woman, and come from a region which, despite its rich civilization, is now trapped amid war, the fire of terrorism, and extremism,” she said in a message that was written “behind the high, cold walls of a prison.”
“The Iranian people will dismantle obstruction and despotism through their persistence,” Mohammadi said in her speech. “Have no doubt – this is certain,” she said.
Mohammadi has been arrested and convicted several times in recent decades, and her twin children have not seen their mother for almost nine years.
“Personally I’m rather pessimistic,” Kiana Mohammadi told reporters on Saturday, while his brother Ali said he remained “very, very optimistic.”
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement seeks the end of Iran’s imposition of a headscarf on all women and an end to the Muslim cleric-led government in Tehran. “I am an Iranian woman, a proud and honorable contributor to civilization, who is currently under the oppression of a despotic religious government,” she said.
A chair was left symbolically empty at the ceremony, where a portrait of Mohammadi was displayed. Mohammadi is one of the women spearheading the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, which saw months-long protests across Iran triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Mohammadi is currently carrying out a hunger strike in solidarity with the Baha’i community, according to her family.
