Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, Shirin Ebadi said, “This prize belongs to the people of Iran. It belongs to the people of the Islamic states, and the people of the South for establishing human rights and democracy.” Well, what belongs to the people of Iran has now been hijacked by the state of Iran, a first in the 108-year history of the Nobel. Like a schoolyard bully, the Ahmadinejad government has confiscated human rights lawyer Ebadi’s Nobel, Legion d’honneur medal, and other honours, claiming that she owes the state $410,000 in back taxes because of the Nobel.

Iran, where the Achaemenid dynasty is said to have charted one of the first acknowledgements of human rights, is now a place where dissent is unspeakable. The rousing political protests following June’s presidential election have been slapped down with the brute might of the state, the abuse of political prisoners and a systematic campaign to silence outspoken figures like Ebadi. Over 4000 people have been arrested and 140 of them, including pro-democracy activists and journalists, were charged with attempting a “soft overthrow” of the regime, on state television. Ebadi, Iran’s first female judge and one of the most outspoken voices for freedom, is bound to irk the Iranian government further, given that she is applauded by a wider international civil society, and she wields a vocabulary of universal human rights. In fact, this taking away of the Nobel follows a much more thorough and pointed mission against her — her Centre for the Defence of Human Rights has been closed, three of her colleagues jailed, her husband was beaten up earlier this year, her bank accounts frozen.

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