Iranian Nobel winner Ebadi hails Ankara

ISTANBUL

Hailing Ankara, Ebadi slams Iran for giving alleged support to Damascus. DAILY NEWS photo

Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi has praised Turkey’s policy toward Syria, while accusing Iran of sending Revolutionary Guards to support Syrian regime forces against rebels.

“The policy adopted by Turkey regarding Syria is much better than Iran’s policy. [Syrian leader] Bashar al-Assad is ruthless in killing his own people and the Iranian government has sent military forces to Syria to do the same. Iran has also sent arms and money to support the Syrian regime,” Ebadi, a Nobel laureate, told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview on Oct. 3.
Ebadi made the remarks while attending a conference organized by the Turkish Representative of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation and chairman of the Life Without Cancer Society, Dida Kaymaz, in Istanbul.

“The situation of women in Iran is getting worse and worse everyday. The most recent example of discrimination is the ban on women being admitted to various university departments. As a result of this, this year, 36 universities have banned women from being admitted to 77 different departments,” she said.

A life spent in airports

Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her pioneering efforts to promote democracy and human rights, particularly for women and children. She was the first person from Iran and the first Muslim woman to receive the award.

The lawyer said after she left Iran, the Iranian regime was angered and arrested her husband and her sister. “They had nothing to do with politics,” she added.

“My husband was subjected to the most intense torture. They forced my husband to appear on TV and repeat the accusations the regime has been leveling against me. At the moment my husband and my sister are free, but they have been banned from leaving the country,” Ebadi said, adding that the Iranian government also confiscated all her belongings and assets.

The Nobel winner, who had to leave Iran in 2009, said international airports had become a kind of refuge for her. “The truth is I live in the airports, because at least 10 months of the year I am traveling.”
Ebadi said many political and social groups in Iran will be boycotting the next presidential elections in Iran “because they believe that the result of the elections won’t make a difference for Iran as long as the main power remains with the Supreme leader of Iran, as decreed in the constitution.”