Background

Shirin Ebadi was born on June 21, 1947, in Hamadan, Iran, into an educated Muslim family. Her father, Mohammad Ali Ebadi, was a professor of commercial law. She had a sister, Noushin, and the family moved to Tehran when Ebadi was a year old.

Education

Ebadi received her early education from Firuzkuhi primary school, and later attended Anoshiravn Dadgar and Reza Shah Kabir secondary schools. Ebadi chose to follow in her father's footsteps, training to be a lawyer at the University of Tehran.

In 1965, she was enrolled at the Faculty of Law. Upon graduation, she qualified for her entrance exam to become a judge and in March 1969, Ebadi became one of the first women judges in Iran. Subsequently, she also earned her doctorate in private law from Tehran University in 1971.

Career

From 1975 to 1979, Ebadi served as the first woman president of the Tehran city court. After the 1978-1979 revolution and the establishment of an Islamic republic, women were deemed unsuitable to serve as judges because the new leaders believed that Islam forbids it. Ebadi was subsequently forced to become a clerk of the court.

Along with other female judges, she raised her voice against this act, forcing the authorities to give them higher roles at the Department of Justice but women were still not allowed to serve as judges. Thus, Ebadi took early retirement and decided to practice law but was denied a lawyer’s license for a long time until 1992.

While waiting for the approval of her attorney's license, she started teaching human rights training courses at the University of Tehran. In addition to it, she also wrote books and published some articles in Iranian journals during the time. In 1992, after years of struggle, she finally obtained a license to practice law and began to do so.

She also taught at the University of Tehrān and became an advocate for civil rights. In court, Ebadi defended women and dissidents and represented many people who, like her, had run afoul of the Iranian government.

Thereafter, she took up many controversial political and social cases such as representing the mother of Arin Golshani, a girl who was tortured and killed under her father's custody. Subsequently, Ebadi also represented the families of serial murder victims as well as the mother of a murdered photojournalist.

She also distributed evidence implicating government officials in the 1999 murders of students at the University of Tehran, for which she was jailed for three weeks in 2000. Found guilty of "disturbing public opinion," she was given a prison term, barred from practicing law for five years, and fined, although her sentence was later suspended.

Ebadi helped found the Defenders of Human Rights Center, but it was closed by the government in 2008. Later that year her law offices were raided, and in 2009 Ebadi went into exile in the United Kingdom. However, she continued to agitate for reforms in Iran.

Ebadi wrote a number of books on the subject of human rights, including The Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children’s Rights in Iran (1994), History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran (2000), and The Rights of Women (2002). She also was founder and head of the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in Iran.

Ebadi reflected on her own experiences in Iran Awakening: From Prison to Peace Prize, One Woman’s Struggle at the Crossroads (2006; with Azadeh Moaveni; also published as Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope) and Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran (2016).

Achievements

• In 1975, Ebadi became the president of Bench 24 of Tehran's City Court, the first woman in the history of Iran to achieve this distinction. Later, upon obtaining her private attorney’s license, she started taking up human rights cases, fighting against the system for the deprived, especially women and children.
  
  In 2003, Ebadi has conferred the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in promoting democracy and human rights, becoming the first Iranian woman to receive the honor. In 2004, she was listed by Forbes Magazine as one of the "100 most powerful women in the world." She is also included in a published list of the "100 most influential women of all time."

Works

More photos

• book

  • Iran Awakening: One Woman's Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country

    (The moving, inspiring memoir of one of the great women of...)

    2007
  • Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran

    (The first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, ...)

    2016
  • The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny

    (For over fifty years the Shah Pahlavi dynasty ruled Iran ...)

    2011
  • Refugee Rights in Iran

    (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, lawyer, and human rights acti...)

    2008

Religion

Shirin Ebadi is a proud Muslim. She prays three times a day.

Politics

Ebadi has been vocal about her belief in her country's autonomy and has sharply criticized the United States government targeting Iran as needing a democratic government. Ebadi also sued the United States government in 2004 for blocking publication of her memoirs in the United States as part of a ban on literature from nations subject to United States sanctions.

Views

As a human rights activist, Ebadi has served as a devoted campaigner for peaceful solutions to social problems and strengthening the legal status of children and women. She has played a major role in empowering women as well as protecting children's rights across the globe. Shirin Ebadi took up the struggle for fundamental human rights and especially the rights of women and children.

She took part in the establishment of organizations that placed these issues on the agenda and wrote books proposing amendments to Iran's succession and divorce laws. She also wanted to withdraw political power from the clergy and advocated the separation of religion and state.

Ebadi has helped found several groups that work to promote human rights in her country, including the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran and the Center for the Defense of Human Rights. She was one of 134 people who signed the 1994 Declaration of Iranian Writers, a pro-democracy letter to the government denouncing all forms of literary censorship.

Ebadi has not argued for abandoning sharia as Iran's legal basis, but she does believe that sharia can be interpreted differently than it has been traditionally, allowing for greater freedom and equality for all citizens. She has expressed repeatedly her belief that Islamic law and democracy can be compatible and that human rights are possible.

Quotations: "Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear."

"The rising of the people in Arab countries did not bring democracy to those countries. Spring is a season of the eruption of the light coming, and there's everything good about it. None of that happened. I prefer the "suppressed rising of the people."

"Human Rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization."

Personality

Ebadi is a huge fan of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Interests

• Politicians

  Benazir Bhutto

Connections

In 1975, Shirin Ebadi married Javad Tavassolian, an electrical engineer. The couple has two daughters, Nargess and Negar.

Father:

Mohammad Ali Ebadi

Spouse:

Javad Tavassolian

Daughter:

Nargess Tavassolian

Daughter:

Negar Tavassolian

Acquaintance:

Betty Williams

References

• Shirin Ebadi As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer, and activist, Shirin Ebadi has spoken out in her country, Iran, as well as throughout the world. This is the story of an exceptional figure who has dedicated her life to fighting for basic human rights, especially those of women and children, within Iran and abroad.
  2007