Iran decries ‘political’ Nobel Peace Prize

Iran on Friday denounced the “biased and political” action by the Nobel committee for awarding jailed rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi the Peace Prize.

Mohammadi, a 51-year-old journalist and activist, has spent much of the past two decades on multiple charges including spreading propaganda against the state and committing actions against national security.

“We note that the Nobel Peace Committee awarded the Peace Prize to a person who was convicted of repeated violations of laws and criminal acts,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.

“We condemn this biased and political move.”

Kanani also lambasted the Nobel Committee for making “false claims”, which he said was “indicative of the approach of some European governments to falsify information and produce confusing and deviant narratives about internal developments in Iran”.

He said the decision to award Mohammadi the prize was a “disappointing deviation from its initial objectives”.

During Friday’s announcement, Nobel committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen hailed Mohammadi for her “brave struggle” and called for her release.

Mohammadi, who has most recently been incarcerated since November 2021, had expressed support for the protest movement which rocked Iran following the September 16, 2022, death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Her death triggered months-long demonstrations which the authorities in Iran labelled as “riots” fomented by foreign governments.