Born: 1947, Hamadan, Iran
Ebadi was an Iranian lawyer, writer and teacher, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran. She was the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the award.
Ebadi earned a law degree from the University of Tehran in 1969. She was one of the first women judges in Iran and from 1975 to 1979 was head of the city court of Tehran. After the 1979 revolution and the establishment of an Islamic republic, however, women were deemed unsuitable to serve as judges, and she was forced to resign. She then practised law and taught at the University of Tehran, and she became an advocate for civil rights. In court Ebadi defended women and dissidents and represented many people who had run a foul of the Iranian government. She also distributed evidence implicating government officials in the murders of students at the University of Tehran in 1999, for which she was jailed for three weeks in 2000. Found guilty of “disturbing public opinion,” she was given a prison term, barred from practising law for five years, and fined, although her sentence was later suspended.
Ebadi’s writings include The Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children’s Rights in Iran (1994) and History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran (2000). She also was founder and head of the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in Iran.
