Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Shirin Ebadi is an author, lawyer, and was the first female judge in Iran. Since 2009, she has been living in exile in London. In 2003, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ebadi served as a judge in Iran until 1979, the year of the Islamic Revolution, after which she was barred from continuing her role as a judge. In 1994, she co-founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child. In 2002, along with other lawyers, she established the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) to support those advocating for democracy promotion.
After being awarded the Nobel Prize in 2003, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2006 and used part of her prize money to support the DHRC. In 2008, the Iranian government shut down the DHRC through a raid on its office, where 30 lawyers were working on cases at the time. While she was abroad, her professional archives and personal belongings were seized, and her sister was arrested under false accusations.
