Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, judge, author, human rights activist, and mother. She has dedicated her life's work to the protection and promotion of human rights, particularly the rights of women and children.
Ebadi was born in Hamadan, Iran in 1947 to educated parents. She moved to Tehran at an early age, at which Ebadi continued to live until 2009, when threats to her life compelled her to leave her homeland.
Perhaps inspired by her father, a professor of commercial law and one of the first lecturers in the field in Iran, she was admitted to the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965. After earning her law degree, she passed the qualification exams to become a judge in Tehran City Court in 1969, later becoming the President of the Bench. In her own words, "I am the first woman in the history of Iranian justice to have served as a judge."
Her career as a judge, however, came to an abrupt end in 1979, as a result of the Islamic Revolution. As Ebadi explains:
Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979, since the belief was that Islam forbids women to serve as judges, I and other female judges were dismissed from our posts and given clerical duties. They made me a clerk in the very court I once presided over. We all protested. As a result, they promoted all former female judges, including myself, to the position of “experts” in the Justice Department. I could not tolerate the situation any longer, and so put in a request for early retirement. My request was accepted. Since the Bar Association had remained closed for some time since the revolution and was being managed by the Judiciary, my application for practising law was turned down. I was, in effect, housebound for many years.
Despite these setbacks, Ebadi continued her studies and earned a doctorate in private law. Although Ebadi had prior to the Revolution secured a law office permit, her applications to practice law were continuously rejected. It was not until 1993 that she was able to secure a license to practice law as a private practitioner.
During this time, Ebadi shifted her focus to human rights and founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. She became a zealous advocate for victims of child abuse, domestic violence, dissidents and political prisoners, has written numerous books and articles of scholarship, and has lectured at prestigious universities around the world.
As a lawyer, Ebadi has been known for accepting pro bono cases of dissident figures and for campaigning for strengthening the legal status of children and women. She was instrumental in the drafting and lobbying for a law against the physical abuse of children, which was passed by the Iranian parliament in 2002. She also drafted a law explaining how a woman’s right to divorce her husband is in line with Sharia (Islamic law) and presented the bill before the government, but the male members would not consider it.
Her advocacy efforts often placed her at odds with the Iranian theocracy, resulting in threats of imprisonment for her and her family. She was in fact imprisoned briefly in 2000 for having criticized the Iranian Islamic regime.
In 2003, Ebadi won the Noble Peace Prize in recognition of her efforts on behalf of democracy and human rights. She was the first female peace prize laureate from the Islamic world. She was later described by Forbes as one of the "100 most powerful women in the world."
In 2009, the Iranian Revolutionary Court raided a bank security lockbox belonging to Ebadi and confiscated her Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma.
Nevertheless, Ebadi remains undaunted, and her advocacy continues.
