Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, returned to the Human Rights House in Oslo today and presented a very grave picture of the human rights situation in her home country Iran. -It is deteriorating by the ay, she said, as she also made it clear that the HRH Network has a crucial role to play for human rights defenders like herself, working at high risk and under pressure from authorities and others. (14-SEP-07)

Text and photo: HRH F / Niels Jacob Harbitz.

-I am glad to be back to see you all again, Ebadi exclaimed as she sat own to update a selection of some 20 activists, representing different rganisations at the Human Rights House in Oslo earlier today. -I really feel at home here. Around the world, human rights defenders are one big family.

-The campaign is already on to bring the fundamentalists in
Ebadi went straight into the subject matter and painted a ver dark picture, not only of the current human rights situation in Iran, but also of the prospects for the future. Executions of under-aged, police violence, harassment and threats against any and all potentially oppositional initiatives, increasing censorship, ever heavier restrictions on freedom of expression, severely discriminating gender-related legislation. These were just some of all the worrying signs that Ebadi sees in the build-up to next year´s elections -In March, there will be Parliamentary elections in Iran. But the campaign is already on to bring the fundamentalists into parliament, in large numbers. The result is evident. There is no real opposition left. 

-I am threatened every day
-My own situation, Ebadi went on to explain, -is the same. I am threatened every day. We have a centre for human rights defenders in Teheran. I used some of the Nobel money to buy it. A few months ago, though, we received a note saying that the office is illegal. Our response was to call a press conference to make it clear that it is not us, but the Government, who is breaking the law in failing to register our organisations and our office. Our centre workswith colleagues in other parts of the country, but we don´t cover the whole of Iran. However, our quarterly report on the human rights situation in Iran cover the whole country. On being asked about politics, Ebadi made it clear that as a lawyer, this was not her field. -I myself will not get involved in politics. My duty is to do my best to create a political climate in which people can elect their own leaders, openly, and at no risk whatsoever.