Short stories from Birmingham readers in 162 countries so far
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Narges Mohammadi, the most prominent jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, has won the 2023 Nobel peace prize for fighting the oppression of women in the country.
“The Norwegian Nobel committee has decided to award the 2023 Nobel peace prize to Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” the committee said in its citation.
Mohammadi is one of Iran’s leading human rights activists, who has campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty and an improvement of prison conditions inside Iran.
The award will be viewed as a tribute to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran that rocked the clerical establishment last year, but has been suppressed with many activists either killed or in jail.
The protests were sparked by the death in police custody of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she had been arrested for not wearing the hijab in line with state rules. The conflict over the wearing of the hijab continues.
Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences in Tehran’s Evin prison amounting to about 12 years’ imprisonment, according to the rights organisation Front Line Defenders, the latest of the many periods she has been detained. Charges against her include spreading propaganda against the state.
She is also the deputy head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a non-governmental organisation led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel peace prize laureate. The committee added: “Her courageous fight has come at a great personal cost.” In recent years, Mohammadi has not been able to live with her family, who were forced to leave Iran.
The chair of the Norwegian Nobel peace prize committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, speaks during the announcement of the prize in Oslo on Friday. Photograph: Terje Pedersen/NTB/AFP/Getty Images
She has been active from within prison, warning of nationwide protests by publishing letters about the state of prisons and detention centres and violence against prisoners and detainees.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual-national who shared a prison cell with Mohammadi in Evin, said: “I am so pleased for her. It makes me cry. She did so much for all of us in Evin. Narges is an inspiration and a pillar to the women in the female ward in Evin for her fearless fight against violation of women’s rights, use of solitary confinement and execution in the judicial system in Iran. This award belongs to every single Iranian woman who, one way or another, has been and remain to be a victim of injustice in Iran.”
Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, said the prize would further encourage her struggle and the movement she leads. “This Nobel prize will embolden Narges’s fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is in fact a prize for the Woman, Life, Freedom [movement],” Rahmani told Reuters in an interview at his home in Paris, where he has lived in exile with their children since shortly after Mohammadi was imprisoned in 2015.
Her brother, Hamidreza, told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he hoped the prize would make activists’ lives safer in Iran. “The situation there is very dangerous, activists there can lose their lives,” he said. Describing waking up to the news of his sister’s award, he said: “The joy is so great. I am so happy on behalf of Narges.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said the award highlighted the courage and determination of Iranian women in the face of reprisals, intimidation, violence and detention. “They’ve been harassed for what they do or don’t wear. There are increasingly stringent legal, social and economic measures against them,” OHCHR spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
Iranian authorities have yet to comment on the award, but the semi-official Fars news agency said Mohammadi had “received her prize from the westerners” and accused her of making “headlines multiple times due to her acts against the national security”.
In mid-December last year, in a letter to Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mohammadi described “assaults against women during detention and in detention centres” as “part of the repression programme” of the Islamic Republic against female protesters and fighters.
In a message published on the anniversary of Amini’s death, she described it as “the day of recording the oppression of the religious authoritarian regime against the women of Iran”. Mohammadi is also one of the women calling for the UN to widen the definition of crimes against humanity to include gender apartheid.
For refusing to be silenced behind bars, she has been banned from speaking directly with her husband and children for the past 18 months. “When your wife and the closest person to you is in prison, every single day you wake up worried that you might hear bad news,” Rahmani told CNN in a recent interview.
After Ebadi, Mohammadi is the second Iranian woman to receive the Nobel peace prize. No Iranian man has received the award. Mohammadi is the 19th woman to win the 122-year-old prize and the first since Maria Ressa of the Philippines won the award in 2021 jointly with Russia’s Dmitry Muratov.
The Nobel peace prize, worth 11m Swedish crowns (£819,000), will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
I've updated this 18th March 2022 I'm Michael Casey from Birmingham England, the fat silver haired writer in shades. Beware of Others with the EXACT SAME NAME, they are not me, and would not want to be me ... use Google UK to find me, otherwise Posh Americans pop up I've done loads of writing, about 2,000,000 Words worth over 34years now But before I started to write, I LISTENED to BBC Radio 4 for 20 years, from the age of 10 or younger Frank Brown our lodger, went back to County Tyrone and he gifted us his Bush Radio. He'd be nearly 100 now if he is still alive, so say a prayer for him 54 years in love with words, and I still look so dashing. I have a picture in the attic, just like Dorian Gray I've also had an interest in Politics for 54 years with my dad heckling the tv and Politicians. I almost immediately had a hit, a play called Shoplife was accepted but not finally produced by a Theatre. The Kenneth More Theatre, so thank them for sparing you all. This was back in 1989 yes, 30 years plus ago, the play was written in 1988. So since then I'm more than good enough, as a writer. Anything else..... I also ignore those who just cannot write, pick your own candidate I tend to write Comedy as I'd rather make you laugh than cry I have written over 2000 short pieces of writing, yes 2000 " (c) by Michael Casey" If you include "chats" 3700 samples, all told, the chats do NOT go into my books when I compile them. My first book ,a full length comedy/drama is The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker You can read translations of it here on this site Up to 20 different languages/translations have been read on the same day via this site, here on Wordpress look fo Translations Galore page, and more And in over 90 Countries world wide too so you have no excuse, find your own language and read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker or Quick Stories or any other of the books in Translation on my Wordpress This proves to me that the humour does travel I have readers in over 100 countries now, just to repeat myself From Nepal to American Samoa and all places North South East and West Or its just a hit man on the run, or whatever Unknown Region Means It may also mean that only non English Speakers like my stuff Coverage but lacking penetration as marketing folks might say I did get 21,000 readers in 3 weeks for the Polish version of In Search of an Indian Princess. which is basically the final 3 chapters of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker all by word of mouth. And 50,000 plus in Christmas week 2021 If you add up all the downloads from my Wordpress + 13,000 when somebody stole the file. I have had more copies than Boris Johnson's Churchill book distributed. Maybe 40,000 copies . Not made a penny from it, free downloads in multiple languages. Reverse Logic, if the world knows me, eventually somebody will pay me But in reality I'll be dead first, and then just 2 pennies to pay the ferryman is enough I've cut the Plaudits, you can read/decide for yourself As for my life, I was born in the shadow of a Brewery, I was a computer operator for a market research company into alcohol sales, 21 years altogether, StatsMR Call centre guy, like everybody once in their life I was also a Trainee Betting Shop Manager I was a concierge and 10 other roles at Crowne Plaza NEC Birmingham for 3 years. Spent 3 years at Pinsent Masons Law firm in Birmingham I even hid a copy of my comic novel "BBU" in the Law Library at Pinsent Masons, well just for a day.. I did a few other jobs too, working life in reverse so to speak and I was an Esol English teacher in an Islamic school, for a year, I knew I could teach. I got Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on the external assessment, yes really And I asked them to pray for me at least once a day beside which I've had a Shanghai connection for 20 years now, including 2 bilingual daughters and being a hausfrau a long time too, I'm a great dad, as I've had lots of time with my daughters I can always make somebody talk or laugh I believe my short stories could be used to teach English, just package them up correctly or App them Or a Tale a Day from Michael, a story telling App What else, I was brawn and brains, I used to be as strong as an Ox, now I just smell like one We have a cat called Totoro, my daughters wanted a pet I said they could have a dog if I died , or a cat if I had a heart attack. A few weeks after that in Jan 2015 I had an Unplanned Quadruple Heart Bypass , it was supposed to be a triple but it ended up a Quadruple, 33% extra free so to speak. Now with an add on Hernia, the size of your fist, pushing through my bypass scar, it hurts when I laugh, so don't make me laugh I also have arthritis and other hindrances that hobble my body and give me pain galore. But my mind is free, though having read my stories you may wish I didn't bother But I'll ignore you, and carry on regardless. I do get heckled by my own Tinnitus these past 3 years+, so I have music on all night long to drown it out. I sleep with Miley, Taylor, Eric Clapton and Will Young, maybe I should buy a bigger bed, or just get a better mattress. Tinnitus is a curse, just trust me I know, each day I wake up, Tinnitus SCREAMS at me for a full hour till it calms down That's the end of the tidy version of my life To finish here's the list of my 20 books, so far:- 1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker 2.Shoplife 3.Essays and Plays 4.Blogs 2011 5.300 and Not OUT 6.Shorts 2013 7.More Shorts 2014 8.Quick Stories 9.Still Alive 2015 10.Undiscovered Words 2016 11.Still Smiling 2017 12.Altogether Now 13.New Horizons 14.14 Up 15.15 Down 16.Sweet Sixteen 17. 17 Again 18. 18 New Views 19. The Final Cut of the 19th Hole 20. 2020 Words 21. 21 Door Keys, key to the door 21 on Bingo, hence title, 53,000 words so far I write bullet point stuff mainly now as Tinnitus stops me from getting in the zone to write, story stories. (c) by Michael Casey stuff though my bullet points are better than some "writers" discuss, miaow. That's why I dream of a speed typist, so I could dictate from the sofa https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC to buy ebooks Loads of Korean and Arabic translations downloaded from my Wordpress, 1000s of them Quick Stories in Korean is a big hit. Maybe Kim in North Korea should read my books, instead of wasting his countries resources on what? Just keeping one person in power, him? Instead of joining the real world and opening a string on golf courses. That way we could get rid of Trump too. Into the sunset, as they play golf. Tears for a Butcher will be the sequel to BBU, and it too will be 600pages, however I really need a speed typist to put it down, while I sit and dictate like Barbara Cartland, and hopefully my speed typist would be impressed. we'd marry have half Korean kids, and form a Kpop band with our 4 new kids, with me as manager. And yes this is more for my bucket list, as Tinnitus keeps me awake too much, 6 months of not sleeping till dawn is really killing me Michael Casey aka the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/efda2dca0de5b9269191b7c8b0102473?s=400&d=mm View more posts
