When people are asked who their heroes are, you can expect to find someone like Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi topping of the final tally. Indeed, two years ago, 150 MPs voted the anti-apartheid campaigner as their biggest political hero. But the name Shirin Ebadi is usually absent from the equation. Yet today, Mrs. Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and (the first female Muslim) Nobel laureate deserves to be high on anyone’s list.
The Nobel committee singled Mrs Ebadi out for promoting human rights and democracy in Iran. It also paid tribute to her courage, noting that she had “never heeded the threat to her own safety”. Both Mrs Ebadi and her daughter receive death threats regularly.
Now, however, her life really seems to be in danger. Before Christmas, Iranian officials shut down and sealed off the human rights centre she founded.
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