Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize

Narges Mohammadi was jailed 13 times and convicted five times Photo: Narges Mohammadi Foundation/AFP

Prisoned activist Narges Mohammadi wins competition Nobel Peace Prize for fighting the oppression of women in Iran.

“This prize is, above all, recognition of the very important work of an entire movement in Iran, led by its undisputed leader Narges Mohammadi,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, announcing the prize in Oslo.

“The impact of the prize should not be decided by the Nobel Committee. We hope this will be an incentive to continue the work in whatever form this movement sees fit.”

Authorities arrested Ms Mohammadi in November after she visited a memorial for a victim of the violent 2019 protests in Iran. .

Ms Reiss-Andersen said Ms Mohammadi had been jailed 13 times and convicted five times. In total, she was sentenced to 31 years in prison.

She is the 19th woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman after human rights activist Shirin Ebadi received the award in 2003.

Before her imprisonment, Ms. Mohammadi was vice president of the banned Center for Human Rights Defenders in Iran. She was close to Ebadi, the founder of a human rights organization.

In 2018, engineer Mohammadi was awarded the 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prize.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi pictured with Karim Lahiji, president of the Iranian League for Human Rights. Photo: Magali Girardin/Keystone

Nobel Prizes are awarded in cash of SEK 11 million (£820,000). Winners also receive an 18-karat gold medal and a diploma.

A panel of experts in Norway selects the Nobel Peace Prize winner from a list of approximately 350 nominees.

Last year, the prize went to human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, in what was seen as a sharp rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian colleague and ally Alexander Lukashenko.

Other Previous winners include Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Aung San Suu Kyi and the United Nations.

Unlike other Nobel Prizes, which are selected and announced in Stockholm, its founder Alfred Nobel decreed that the Peace Prize would be decided and awarded in Oslo by a five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.

An independent commission appointed by the Norwegian parliament.

The Peace Prize is the fifth of the prizes announced this year. A day earlier, the Nobel Committee awarded Norwegian writer John Foss the Prize for Literature.

On Wednesday, the prize in chemistry went to American scientists Mungi Bavendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov.

The prize in physics was awarded on Tuesday to French-Swedish physicist Anna L' Julier, French scientist Pierre Agostini and Hungarian Ferenc Kraus.

Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian-American, and Drew Weissman, an American, received the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.

The Nobel season ends on Monday with the announcement of the winner of the prize in economics, which is officially known as The Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

The prizes will be presented at award ceremonies in December in Oslo and Stockholm.